THE  STORY  OF  THE  WES1    SERIES 

EDITED  BY  RIP  LEY  HITCHCOLK 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY 


(*fte  Story  of  the  ttlest  Series. 

EDITED  BY  RIPLEY  HITCHCOCK. 
Each,  illustrated,  12010,  cloth,  $1.50. 

the  Story  of  tbe  Indian. 

By   GEORGE   BIRD   GRINNELL,   author  of  "  Pawnee 
Hero  Stories,"  "  Blackfoot  Lodge  Tales,"  etc. 
"  In  every  way  worthy  of  an   author  who  as  an  authority  upon 
the   Western   Indians  is  second    to   none.       A  book  full   of  color, 
abounding  in  observation,  and  remarkable  in  sustained  interest;  it 
is  at  the  same  time  characterized  by  a  grace  of  style  which  is  rarely 
to  be  looked  for  in  such  a  work,  and  which  adds  not  a  little  to  the 
charm  of  it." — London  Daily  Chronicle. 

tbc  Story  of  tbc  mine. 

Illustrated  by  the   Great    Comstock   Lode  of  Nevada. 
By  CHARLES  HOWARD  SHINN. 

"  The  author  has  written  a  book  not  alone  full  of  information, 
but  replete  with  the  true  romance  of  the  American  mine." — New 
York  Times. 

"  Few  chapters  of  recent  history  are  more  fascinating  than  that 
which  Mr.  Shinn  has  told  in  'The  Story  of  the  Mine.'  .  .  .  Mr. 
Shinn  has  drawn  his  pictures  skillfully  and  sympathetically,  and 
he  knows  the  country  and  people  at  first  hand." — The  Outlook. 


tbe  Story  of  tbe  Cowboy. 


By  E.  HOUGH.     Illustrated  by  William  L.  Wells  and 
C.  M.  Russell. 

"Nothing  fresher  or  finer  has  been  written  in  many  a  day. 
.  .  .  An  admirable  work." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  An  unusually  vivid  and  interesting  picture  of  Western  life." — 
New  York  Herald. 

IN     PREPARATION. 

The  Story  of  the  Railroad.    By  CY  WARMAN. 
The  Story  of  the  Trapper.    By  GILBERT  PARKER. 
The  Story  of  the  Soldier. 
The  Story  of  the  Explorer.     By  RIPLEY  HITCHCOCK-. 


D.    APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,   NEW   YORK. 


The  cowboy. 


THE  -STORY 
OF   THE    COWBOY 


BY 

E.   HOUGH 

» » 

AUTHOR   OF   THE    SINGING    MOUSE    STORIES,    ETC. 


I L LUSTRA  TED  BY 
WILLIAM  L.    WELLS  AND  C.   M.   RUSSELL 


NEW   YORK 

D.   APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
I 


COPYRIGHT,  1897, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


7  t-  f 


EDITOK'S  PEEFACE. 


LIKE  everything  peculiarly  distinctive,  the  life  of 
the  cowboy  through  its  very  raciness  has  lent  itself 
to  literary  abuse,  and  the  cowboy  has  been  freely  pic- 
tured by  indolent  and  unscrupulous  pens  as  an  embodi- 
ment of  license  and  uproarious  iniquity.  If  he  were 
only  this,  the  great  business  which  he  has  conducted 
on  the  plains  could  never  have  grown  to  its  imposing 
proportions.  With  the  cowboy,  as  with  the  Indian, 
it  is  essential  to  disabuse  ourselves  of  illusions.  Pic- 
turesque the  cowboy  assuredly  is,  easily  superior,  so 
far  as  effectiveness  is  concerned,  to  the  guacho  of  South 
America  and,  from  an  Anglo-Saxon  point  of  view,  to 
the  bedizened  vaquero  of  Mexico.  Beyond  this  pic- 
turesqueness  of  effect  and  environment  very  few  have 
cared  to  go,  and  therefore  Americans  have  had  little 
actual  realization  of  the  vastness  of  the  cowboy's  king- 
dom, the  magnitude  of  the  interests  in  his  care,  or 
the  fortitude,  resolution,  and  instant  readiness  essen- 
tial to  his  daily  life.  The  American  cowboy  is  the 
most  gallant  modern  representative  of  a  human  in- 
dustry second  to  very  few  in  antiquity.  I  use  the 
present  tense,  but,  like  the  other  typical  figures  of  the 
country  west  of  the  Missouri,  the  cowboy  is  already 
receding  into  the  shadows  of  past  years.  The  cattle, 
wild  descendants  of  Andalusian  stock,  which  he  herded 
in  Texas  and,  later,  drove  to  the  North,  have  been  bred 


vi  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

to  the  ways  of  civilization,  with  a  distinct  gain  to  their 
comeliness,  if  not  to  their  agility.  The  long  trails  have 
been  blocked,  the  ranges  traversed  by  barbed  wire,  and 
thysuperb  freedom  of  the  unowned  plains  is  exchanged 
for  the  bounds  and  limits  of  exact  ownership. 

Such  a  chapter  of  American  history  demands  pres- 
ervation for  reasons  esthetic  and  practical  alike,  and  it 
is  a  happy  circumstance  that  the  demand  is  so  aptly 
met  in  the  union  of  actual  knowledge  and  graphic  ex- 
pression presented  in  Mr.  Hough's  Story  of  the  Cow- 
boy. This  is  not  a  bare  record,  not  a  summary  of  in- 
dustriaf.  results,  but  a  living  picture  of  a  type  often 
heroic  and  always  invested  with  an  individual  inter- 
est, and  it  is  a  picture  also  which  brings  before  us  the 
sweep  and  majesty  and  splendid  atmosphere  of  the 
plains. 

It  seems  proper  to  add  that  the  illustrations,  like 
the  text,  are  based  upon  actual  knowledge  and,  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Russell,  whose  home  is  a  Montana  ranch, 
upon  the  daily  experience  of  a  cowboy's  life. 


IN  a  certain  Western  city  there  is  the  studio  of  a 
sculptor  whose  ambition  m  life  has  been  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  the  West.  He  has  sought  to  put  into 
lasting  form  the  types  of  that  unique  and  rugged  era 
of  our  national  growth  when  the  soldier  and  plains- 
man, the  Indian  and  the  cowboy  were  the  citizens  of 
that  vast  and  unknown  region.  In  the  following  out 
of  that  idea  he  has  made  in  clay  and  bronze  many 
things  entitled  to  be  called  curious  and  beautiful.  It 
is  the  fancy  of  this  artist  at  times  to  take  some  of 
these  forms  and  play  at  pictures  with  them  for  the 
entertainment  of  his  guests.  A  revolving  pedestal 
is  placed  in  the  centre  of  the  room  in  such  way  that  the 
light  of  the  fire  or  of  the  candles  may  cast  a  shadow 
from  it  upon  the  farther  wall.  Upon  the  pedestal  is 
placed  some  figure  which  appears  much  magnified  upon 
the  white  surface  beyond,  albeit  somewhat  blurred  and 
softened  in  its  lines.  Now  it  is  the  likeness  of  the 
grizzly  bear,  now  that  of  the  buffalo,  while  again  one 
sees  the  lean  gray  wolf,  the  tense  figure  of  the  flying 
antelope,  or  the  reaching  neck  and  cut  chin  of  the 
panther.  At  one  time  a  mounted  Indian  may  flit  upon 
the  wall,  or  the  soldier  with  sabre  and  spur.  These 
things,  curious  and  beautiful,  form  a  wild  and  moving 
spectacle,  coming  as  they  do  from  a  time  which  may 
now  almost  be  said  to  belong  to  the  past. 

vii 


viii  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

Upon  a  certain  night  this  artist  had  played  long 
with  his  pictures,  when  he  picked  up  another  fig- 
ure, holding  it  for  a  moment  somewhat  lovingly,  it 
seemed,  before  he  placed  it  upon  the  little  monument. 
"  Look!  "  said  he.  There  upon  the  wall,  of  the  size  of 
life,  jaunty,  erect,  was  the  virile  figure  of  a  mounted 
man.  He  stood  straight  in  the  stirrups  of  his  heavy 
saddle,  but  lightly  and  well  poised.  A  coil  of  rope 
hung  at  his  saddlebow.  A  loose  belt  swung  a  revol- 
ver low  down  upon  his  hip.  A  wide  hat  blew  up  and 
back  a  bit  with  the  air  of  his  travelling,  and  a  deep 
kerchief  fluttered  at  his  neck.  His  arm,  held  lax  and 
high,  offered  support  to  the  slack  reins  so  little  needed 
in  his  riding.  The  small  and  sinewy  steed  beneath 
him  was  alert  and  vigorous  as  he.  It  was  a  figure  vivid, 
keen,  remarkable.  Those  who  saw  it  gave  it  quick  ap- 
plause. When  it  vanished  there  was  silence,  for  per- 
haps here  were  those  who  thought  upon  the  story  that 
had  been  told. 

The  story  of  the  West  is  a  story  of  the  time  of  heroes. 
Of  all  those  who  appear  large  upon  the  fading  page  of 
that  day,  none  may  claim  greater  stature  than  the  chief 
figure  of  the  cattle  range.  Cowboy,  cattle  man,  cow- 
puncher,  it  matters  not  what  name  others  have  given 
him,  he  has  remained — himself.  From  the  half-tropic 
to  the  half -arctic  country  he  has  ridden,  his  type,  his 
costume,  his  characteristics  practically  unchanged,  one 
of  the  most  dominant  and  self-sufficient  figures  in  the 
history  of  the  land.  He  never  dreamed  he  was  a  hero, 
therefore  perhaps  he  was  one.  He  would  scoff  at  monu- 
ment or  record,  therefore  perhaps  he  deserves  them. 

Either  chiselled  or  written  record  may  distort  if  it 
merely  extol.  For  this  central  figure  of  the  cattle  days, 
this  early  rider  of  the  range,  it  is  best  to  hope  that  he 
may  not  commonly  be  seen  as  thrown  up  on  the  air  in  a 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

mirage,  huge,  grotesque,  fantastic,  but  that  he  may 
rather  be  viewed  clear  cut  against  the  Western  sky,  a 
glorious  silhouette  of  the  open  air.  Before  many  years 
have  passed  the  original  of  such  a  picture  will  have 
disappeared.  We  shall  listen  in  vain  for  the  jingle  of 
his  spurs,  or  the  creak  of  his  leather  gear,  or  the  whip- 
ping of  his  scarf  end  on  the  wind.  Tinkle  and  creak 
even  now  die  away  in  the  distance  beyond.  (An  ex- 
plorer, a  surveyor,  a  guide,  a  scout,  a  fighting  man)  he 
passed  this  way.  If  we  study  him,  we  shall  study  also 
the  day  in  which  he  lived,  more  especially  that  early 
day  which  saw  the  opening  and  the  climax  of  that 
drama  of  commerce — the  cattle  industry  of  the  West. 

So  great  an  industry  could  exist  only  over  a  vast 
extent  of  country.  Therefore,  although  its  methods 
and  its  followers  have  had  a  curious  permanency  of 
type,  it  was  foregone  that  locality  should  determine  a 
certain  variety  in  its  practical  customs.  Obviously  a 
just  estimate  of  the  entire  industry  or  of  its  leading 
figure  must  include  alike  the  dissimilar  and  the  com- 
mon points  of  view.  This  is  not  easily  done,  for  the 
vocation  of  the  cattle  rancher,  once  curiously  without 
section,  has  now  become  much  sectionalized,  and  has 
been  much  modified  by  agricultural  influx — the  latter 
an  influence  which  will  produce  still  greater  change  in 
the  coming  generation,  when  all  the  possible  farming 
lands  shall  have  been  tapped  and  tested,  and  when  the 
farming  man  shall  have  begun  to  look  about  him  and 
to  travel  more  in  a  day  of  cheaper  transportation.  In 
the  attempt  to  arrive  at  an  estimate  which  should  be 
representative  and  fair,  the  writer  has  found  his  own 
experience  very  much  aided  by  that  of  many  rancher 
friends  living  or  owning  property  over  a  wide  area  of 
the  cattle  range.  The  counsel  of  these  friends  has  been 
desirable  and  valuable  in  an  undertaking  such  as  that 


X  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

in  hand.  Especial  thanks  for  critical  suggestions  are 
due  Mr.  George  Bird  Grinnell,  author  of  the  Story  of 
the  Indian.  Mr.  Grinnell's  experience  in  the  old  and 
the  new  West  has  been  a  wide  one,  and  his  observa- 
tion has  extended  to  the  small  as  well  as  the  large  fea- 
tures of  practical  ranch  life,  so  that  his  aid  has  been 
matter  of  good  fortune.  The  writer  concludes  his 
labour  with  a  sense  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  result, 
but  feeling  none  the  less  that  the  theme  itself  is  an  in- 
teresting and  worthy  one. 

E.  HOUGH. 
CHICAGO,  ILL.,  Dec.  10, 1896. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ^ 

I.— THE  LONG  TRAIL    .....!.  i 

II- — THE   RANCH    IN   THE    SOUTH       ...  J) 

HI. — THE    RANCH   IN   THE    NORTH       ...  28 

IV. — THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT      ....  50 

V. — THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE      ....  70 

VI. — MARKS  AND  BRANDS        ....  109 

VII. — FREE  GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS    .        .  123 

VIII. — THE  DRIVE 135 

IX. — THE  ROUND-UP ^50. 

X. — DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES  .....  182 

XI. — A   DAY  AT  THE   RANCH       .....  200 

XII. — THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS 221 

XIII. — SOCIETY  IN  THE  cow  COUNTRY        ....  237 

XIV. — THE  NESTER 204 

XV. — THE  RUSTLER 272 

XVI.— WARS  OF  THE  RANGE 300 

XVII. — BEEF  AND  FREEDOM         ....  325 

XVIII. — THE  IRON  TRAILS     ......  330 

XIX. — SUNSET  ON  THE  RANGE 


LIST   OF  ILLUSTKATIONS. 


FACING 
PAGE 

THE  COWBOY Frontispiece 

CUTTING  OUT 

THE  HORSE-HERD 

BRANDING  A  CALF 

ROPING  A  MAVERICK 173 

A  STAMPEDE 194 

A  CONTEST  OF  RACES 25? 

«RED  WINS" 261 

LOOKING  FOR  RUSTLERS •  278 

A  MEETING  IN  A  BLIZZARD 307 


THE  STORY   OF  THE  COWBOY. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   LONG   TKAIL. 

IT  lies  like  a  long  rope  thrown  idly  on  the  ground, 
abandoned  by  the  hand  that  used  it.  Its  strands  are 
unbraided  and  have  fallen  apart,  lying  loose  and  for- 
gotten upon  the  sandy  soil.  The  wind  is  blowing 
dust  across  these  disconnected  threads,  and  the  grasses 
are  seeking  to  cover  them,,  and  the  waters  have  in 
places  washed  them  quite  away.  The  frayed  ends  are 
disappearing.  Soon  the  entire  cord  will  have  disap- 
peared. The  Long  Trail  of  the  cattle  range  will  then 
be  but  a  memory. 

The  braiding  of  a  hundred  minor  pathways,  the 
Long  Trail  lay  like  a  vast  rope  connecting  the  cattle 
country  of  the  South  with  that  of  the  North.  Lying 
loose  or  coiling,  it  ran  for  more  than  two  thousand 
miles  along  the  eastern  edge  of  the  Eocky  Mountains, 
sometimes  close  in  at  their  feet,  again  hundreds  of 
miles  away  across  the  hard  table-lands  or  the  well- 
flowered  prairies.  It  traversed  in  a  fair  line  the  vast 
land  of  Texas,  curled  over  the  Indian  Nations,  over 
Kansas,  Colorado,  Nebraska,  Wyoming,  and  Montana, 
and  bent  in  wide  overlapping  circles  as  far  west 
as  Utah  and  Nevada;  as  far  east  as  Missouri,  Iowa, 

1 


2  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

even  Illinois;  and  as  far  north,  as  the  British  pos- 
sessions. Even  to-day  you  may  trace  plainly  its  former 
course,  from  its  faint  beginnings  in  the  lazy  land  of 
Mexico,  the  Ararat  of  the  cattle  range.  It  is  distinct 
across  Texas,  and  multifold  still  in  the  Indian  lands. 
Its  many  intermingling  paths  still  scar  the  iron  sur- 
face of  the  Neutral  Strip,  and  the  plows  have  not 
buried  all  the  old  furrows  in  the  plains  of  Kansas. 
Parts  of  the  path  still  remain  visible  in  the  mountain 
lands  of  the  far  North.  You  may  see  the  ribbons 
banding  the  hillsides  to-day  along  the  valley  of  the 
Stillwater,  and  along  the  Yellowstone  and  toward  the 
source  of  the  Missouri.  The  hoof  marks  are  beyond 
the  Musselshell,  over  the  Bad  Lands  and  the  coulees 
and  the  flat  prairies;  and  far  up  into  the  land  of  the  long 
cold  you  may  see,  even  to-day  if  you  like,  the  shadow  of 
that  unparalleled  pathway,  the  Long  Trail  of  the  cattle 
range.  History  has  no  other  like  it. 

The  Long  Trail  was  surveyed  and  constructed  in 
a  century  and  a  day.  Over  the  Eed  Eiver  of  the  South, 
a  stream  even  to-day  perhaps  known  but  vaguely  in  the 
minds  of  many  inhabitants  of  the  country,  there  ap- 
peared, almost  without  warning,  vast  processions  of 
strange  horned  kine — processions  of  enormous  wealth, 
owned  by  kings  who  paid  no  tribute,  and  guarded  by 
men  who  never  knew  a  master.  Whither  these  were 
bound,  what  had  conjured  them  forth,  whence  they 
came,  were  questions  in  the  minds  of  the  majority  of  the 
population  of  the  North  and  East  to  whom  the  phe-, 
nomenon  appeared  as  the  product  of  a  day.  The  an- 
swer to  these  questions  lay  deep  in  the  laws  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  extended  far  back  into  that  civilization's  his- 
tory. The  Long  Trail  was  finished  in  a  day.  It  was 
begun  more  than  a  century  before  that  day,  and  came 
forward  along  the  very  appointed  ways  of  time. 


THE  LONG  TRAIL.  3 

Senor  Jose  Montero,  let  us  say,  lived  long  ago,  far 
down  in  the  sunny  land  of  Mexico.  The  mountains 
rose  up  blue  beyond  the  hacienda,  and  before  it  the  val- 
leys lay  wide  and  pleasant.  Life  here  was  very  calm, 
alike  for  the  haciendado  and  the  barefoot  peons  who 
made  a  servile  army  about  him.  There  wras  a  little 
grain,  there  were  a  few  fruits,  and  there  were  herds  of 
cattle.  Yes,  there  were  the  cattle,  and  there  they  had 
always  been,  longer  than  Jose  Montero  or  his  father 
could  remember.  It  might  be  that  they  had  always 
been  there,  though  to  be  sure  there  was  talk  of  one  Cor- 
tez.  The  cattle  might  have  come  from  another  land,  at 
another  time.  Quien  sabe?  In  the  splendid  savagery 
of  that  land  and  time  it  made  small  difference  when  or 
whence  they  came.  There  they  were,  these  cattle,  lean 
of  flank,  broad  of  horn,  clean-limbed,  muscular,  active, 
fierce,  simply  wild  animals  that  knew  no  care  save  the 
hand  of  force.  They  produced  food,  and  above  all  they 
produced  hide  and  leather. 

The  sons  of  Jose  Montero  moved  slowly  north  in 
course  of  years,  and  edged  into  the  Indian  country  lying 
above  the  Rio  Grande.  The  priests  went  with  them,  to 
teach  them  the  management  of  los  Indios  reducidos. 
The  horses  and  the  herds  of  cattle  went  slowly  north 
with  their  owners.  Thus,  far  down  in  the  vague 
Southwest,  at  some  distant  time,  in  some  distant  por- 
tion of  old,  mysterious  Mexico,  there  fell  into  line 
the  hoof  prints  which  made  the  first  faint  begin- 
nings of  the  Long  Trail,  merely  the  path  of  a  half- 
nomadic  movement  along  the  line  of  the  least  resist- 
ance. 

The  descendants  of  Jose  Montero's  sons  spread  out 
over  the  warm  country  on  both  sides  of  the  Rio  Grande, 
and  they  grew  and  their  herds  grew.  Many  years  of 
peace  and  quiet  passed,  broken  only  by  such  troubles 


4:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

as  were  caused  by  the  Indians,  with  whom  the  sons  of 
Montero  fared  for  the  most  part  understandingly.  But 
one  day,  more  than  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago, 
there  appeared  in  that  country  men  of  fierce-bearded 
faces,  many  of  blue  eyes,  and  all  of  size  and  courage. 
There  was  war,  long  years  of  bitter,  relentless,  un- 
recorded war,  a  war  of  pillage  and  assassination,  of  theft 
and  ambush.  The  fierce  strangers  from  the  North 
would  not  be  driven  back.  They  increased,  they  be- 
came more  formidable.  At  times  they  even  crossed  the 
Eio  Grande  and  drove  away  herds  to  their  ranclios 
to  the  north,  these  being  little  less  than  fortresses  or 
barricades,  their  life  one  of  armed  but  undaunted  so- 
licitude. In  turn  the  sons  of  Montero  made  raids  and 
sallies,  and  killed  men  and  captured  women,  and  drove 
away  herds.  The  Long  Trail  began  to  deepen  and 
extend.  It  received  then,  as  it  did  later,  a  baptism 
of  human  blood  such  as  no  other  pathway  of  the  conti- 
nent has  known. 

The  nomadic  and  the  warlike  days  passed,  and  there 
ensued  a  more  quiet  and  pastoral  time.  The  fierce 
strangers,  perhaps  reticent  in  regard  to  the  methods 
by  which  they  had  obtained  what  they  liked,  now  held 
that  which  they  chose  to  call  their  own.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  a  feudalism  of  the  range,  a  baronry  rude 
enough,  but  a  glorious  one,  albeit  it  began,  like  all 
feudalism,  in  large-handed  theft  and  generous  mur- 
dering. The  flocks  of  these  strong  men,  carelessly  in- 
terlapping,  increased  and  multiplied  amazingly.  They 
were  hardly  looked  upon  as  wealth.  The  people  could 
not  eat  a  tithe  of  the  beef,  they  could  not  use  a  hun- 
dredth of  the  leather.  Over  hundreds  and  hundreds 
of  miles  of  ownerless  grass  lands,  by  the  rapid  waters  of 
the  mountains,  by  the  slow  streams  of  the  plains  or  the 
long  and  dark  lagoons  of  the  low  coast  country,  the 


THE  LONG  TRAIL.  5 

herds  of  tens  grew  into  droves  of  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands and  hundreds  of  thousands. 

Texas  had  become  a  republic  and  a  State  before  a 
certain  obvious  and  useful  phenomenon  in  the  econom- 
ics of  Nature  had  been  generally  recognised.  Yet  at 
some  time  and  under  some  condition  of  observation  it  had 
been  discovered  that  the  short  gray  grass  of  the  north- 
ern plains  of  Texas,  which  the  buffalo  loved  so  well, 
would  rear  cattle  to  a  much  greater  size  than  those 
of  the  coast  range.  A  cow  of  the  hot  and  low  country 
might  not  weigh  more  than  five  or  six  hundred  pounds, 
whereas  if  driven  north  and  allowed  to  range  on  the 
sun-cured  short  grasses,  the  buffalo  grass,  the  gramma 
grass  or  the  mesquite  grass,  the  weight  might  increase 
fairly  by  one  third.  It  was  the  simplest  thing  in  the 
world  to  gain  this  increased  value  by  driving  the  cattle 
from  the  lower  to  the  upper  ranges  of  the  great  State — 
always  subject  to  the  consent  or  to  the  enterprise  of 
the  savage  tribes  which  then  occupied  that  region. 

This  was  really  the  dawning  of  the  American  cattle 
industry.  The  Long  Trail  thus  received  a  gradual  but 
unmistakable  extension,  always  to  the  north,  and  along 
the  line  of  the  intermingling  of  the  products  of  the 
Spanish  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  civilizations.  Sometimes 
these  fatter  cattle  were  driven  back  and  sold  in  Old 
Mexico,  but  there  was  no  real  market  there.  The  thrust 
was  always  to  the  north.  Chips  and  flakes  of  the  great 
Southwestern  herd  began  to  be  seen  in  the  Northern 
States.  As  early  as  18£2_JEexas  cattle  were  driven  to 
Illinois.  In  1861  Louisiana  was  tried  as  an  outlet  with- 
out success.  In  1867  a  venturous  drover  took  a  herd 
across  the  Indian  Nations,  bound  for  California,  and 
only  abandoned  the  project  because  the  plains  Indians 
were  then  very  bad  in  the  country  to  the  north.  In 
1869  several  herds  were  driven  from  Texas  to  Nevada. 
2 


6  THE  STOKY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

These  were  side  trails  of  the  main  cattle  road.  It 
seemed  clear  that  a  great  population  in  the  North 
needed  the  cheap  beef  of  Texas,,  and  the  main  question 
appeared  to  be  one  of  transportation.  No  proper  means 
for  this  offered.  At  Rockport  and  one  or  two  other 
harborless  towns  on  the  Texas  coast  it  was  sought  to 
establish  canneries  for  the  product  of  the  range,  but  all 
these  projects  failed.  A  rapacious  steamship  line  un- 
dertook to  build  up  a  carrying  trade  between  Texas 
and  New  Orleans  or  Mobile,  but  this  also  failed.  The 
civil  war  stopped  almost  all  plans  to  market  the  range 
cattle,  and  the  close  of  that  war  found  the  vast  graz- 
ing lands  of  Texas  covered  fairly  with  millions  of  cat- 
tle which  had  no  actual  or  determinate  value.  They 
were  sorted  and  branded  and  herded  after  a  fashion, 
but  neither  they  nor  their  increase  could  be  converted 
into  anything  but  more  cattle.  The  cry  for  a  market 
became  imperative. 

Meantime  the  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  was  rolling 
swiftly  toward  the  upper  West.  The  Indians  were  being 
driven  from  the  plains.  A  solid  army  was  pressing  be- 
hind the  vanguard  of  soldier,  scout,  and  plainsman. 
The  railroads  were  pushing  out  into  a  new  and  un- 
tracked  empire.  They  carried  the  market  with  them. 
The  market  halted,  much  nearer,  though  still  some 
hundreds  of  miles  to  the  north  of  the  great  herd.  The 
Long  Trail  tapped  no  more  at  the  door  of  Illinois,  Mis- 
souri, Arkansas,  but  leaped  north  again  definitely,  this 
time  springing  across  the  Red  River  and  up  to  the 
railroads,  along  sharp  and  well-defined  channels  deep- 
ened in  the  year  of  1866  alone  by  the  hoofs  of  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  million  cattle.  In  1871,  only  five 
years  later,  over  six  hundred  thousand  cattle  crossed  the 
Red  River  for  the  Northern  markets.  Abilene,  New- 
ton, Wichita,  Ellsworth,  Great  Bend,  "  Dodge/'  flared 


THE  LONG  TRAIL.  7 

out  into  a  swift  and  sometime  evil  blossoming.  The  com- 
ing of  the  markets  did  not  make  more  fortunes  than  it 
lost  for  the  Southern  cattle  owners,  for  the  advent  of 
the  long-horned  herds  was  bitterly  contested  in  many 
sections  of  the  North,  but  in  spite  of  all  a  new  industry 
was  swiftly  and  surely  established.  Thus  the  men  of 
the  North  first  came  to  hear  of  the  Long  Trail  and  the 
men  who  made  it,  though  really  it  had  begun  long 
ago  and  had  been  foreordained  to  grow. 

By  this  time, 1867  and  1868, the  northern  portions  of 
the  region  immediately  to  the  east  of  the  Kocky  Moun- 
tains had  been  sufficiently  cleared  of  their  wild  in- 
habitants to  admit  a  gradual  though  precarious  settle- 
ment. It  had  been  learned  yet  again  that  the  buffalo 
grass  and  the  sweet  waters  of  the  far  North  would 
fatten  a  range  broadhorn  to  a  stature  far  beyond  any 
it  could  attain  on  the  southern  range.  The  Long  Trail 
pushed  rapidly  still  further  to  the  north,  where  there 
still  remained  "  free  grass  "  and  a  new  market.  The 
territorial  ranges  needed  many  thousands  of  cattle  for 
their  stocking,  and  this  demand  took  a  large  part  of  the 
Texas  drive  which  came  to  Abilene,  Great  Bend,  and 
Fort  Dodge.  Moreover,  the  Government  was  now  feed- 
ing thousands  of  its  new  red  wards,  and  these  Indians 
needed  thousands  of  beeves  for  rations,  which  were 
driven  from  the  southern  range  to  the  upper  army 
posts  and  reservations.  Between  this  Government  de- 
mand and  that  of  the  territorial  stock  ranges  there  was 
occupation  for  the  men  who  made  the  saddle  their 
home.  The  Long  Trail,  which  long  ago  had  found  the 
black  corn  lands  of  Illinois  and  Missouri,  now  crowded 
to  the  West,  until  it  had  reached  Utah  and  Nevada, 
and  penetrated  every  open  park  and  mesa  and  valley  of 
Colorado,  and  found  all  the  high  plains  of  Wyoming. 
Cheyenne  and  Laramie  became  common  words  now, 


8  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

and  drovers  spoke  as  wisely  of  the  dangers  of  the  Platte 
as  a  year  before  they  had  mentioned  those  of  the  lied 
River  or  the  Arkansas.  Nor  did  the  Trail  pause  in  its 
irresistible  push  to  the  north  until  it  had  found  the  last 
of  the  five  great  transcontinental  lines,  far  in  the  British 
provinces,  where  in  spite  of  a  long  season  of  ice  and  snow 
the  uttermost  edges  of  the  great  herd  might  survive,  in 
a  certain  per  cent  at  least,  each  year  in  an  almost  unas- 
sisted struggle  for  existence,  under  conditions  different 
enough,  it  would  seem,  from  those  obtaining  at  the  op- 
posite extreme  of  the  wild  roadway  over  which  they  came. 
The  Long  Trail  of  the  cattle  range  was  done.  By 
magic  the  cattle  industry  had  spread  over  the  entire 
West.  To-day  many  men  think  of  that  industry  as 
belonging  only  to  the  Southwest,  and  many  would  con- 
sider that  it  was  transferred  to  the  North.  Eeally  it 
was  not  transferred  but  extended,  and  the  trail  of  the 
old  drive  marks  the  line  of  that  extension.  To-day  the 
Long  Trail  is  replaced  by  other  trails,  product  of  the 
swift  development  of  the  West,  and  it  remains  as  the 
connection,  now  for  the  most  part  historical  only,  be- 
tween two  phases  of  an  industry  which,  in  spite  of  differ- 
ences of  climate  and  condition,  retain  a  similarity  in  all 
essential  features.  When  the  last  steer  of  the  first  herd 
was  driven  into  the  corral  at  the  Ultima  Thule  of  the 
range,  it  was  the  pony  of  the  American  cowboy  which 
squatted  and  wheeled  under  the  spur  and  burst  down 
the  straggling  street  of  the  little  frontier  town.  Before 
that  time,  and  since  that  time,  it  was  and  has  boon 
the  same  pony,  the  same  man,  who  have  travelled  ilio 
range,  guarding  and  guiding  the  wild  herds,  from  the 
romantic  up  to  the  commonplace  days  of  the  West. 
The  American  cowboy  and  the  American  cattle  indus- 
try have  been  and  are  one  and  inseparable.  The  story 
of  one  is  the  story  of  the  other. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    RANCH   IN   THE    SOUTH. 

DESCRIPTION  of  the  Western  cattle  industry,  wheth- 
er in  regard  to  its  features,  its  characters,  or  its  en- 
vironments, must  be  largely  a  matter  of  generalization. 
The  cattle  country  itself  covers  a  third  of  the  entire 
territory  of  the  United  States.  We  have  sought  rough- 
ly to  divide  it  into  the  two  sections  of  the  North  and 
South,  but  it  would  trouble  one  to  say  where  even  a 
broad  and  indefinite  line  should  be  drawn  which  should 
act  as  a  fair  boundary  between  the  two.  Should  we 
place  that  boundary,  loosely  speaking,  somewhere  at  the 
central  or  southern  line  of  the  State  of  Kansas,  we 
shall  have  established  a  demarcation  at  best  arbitrary 
and  in  many  ways  inconclusive  and  inaccurate.  Even 
if  we  presume  that  this  indefinite  line  be  sufficiently 
accurate,  we  shall  have  left,  for  our  Southern  ranch  re- 
gion, a  domain  many  times  larger  than  the  entire  terri- 
tory of  Great  Britain,  with  a  few  of  her  choice  provinces 
thrown  into  the  bargain. 

Over  so  large  a  region  there  must  prevail  some 
divergence  of  people  and  things;  and  in  turn  we 
must  remember  that  all  these  people  and  things,  more 
especially  as  they  pertain  to  the  story  of  the  cattle 
man.  have  in  late  years  been  subject  to  much  change. 
It  would  be  very  natural  for  any  one  who  had  but 
a  partial  acquaintance,  or  one  limited  to  a  few  sec- 

9 


10  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

tions  of  so  large  a  region,  to  consider  as  incorrect 
any  specialized  description  which,  did  not  tally  with 
his  own  observation  in  his  own  locality.  Still  more 
inaccurate  might  such  an  observer  consider  a  description 
which  covered  accurately  twenty  years  ago  a  section 
which  he  first  sees  to-day,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
century.  For  instance,  a  citizen  of  the  type  our  friend 
the  cowpuncher  is  wont  to  term  a  "  pilgrim,"  might 
go  to-day  to  some  railroad  point  in  the  vast  State  of 
Texas,  expecting  to  find  there  in  full  swing  the  rude 
ways  of  the  past.  He  might  expect  to  see  the  ranch- 
man an  uncouth  personage,  clad  in  the  border  garb  once 
pictured  in  lurid  literature  or  still  more  lurid  drama, 
his  speech  full  of  strange  oaths,  his  home  a  dugout  or  a 
shanty.  Much  surprised  might  this  stranger  be  to  dis- 
cover his  ranchman  a  comfortable  individual,  of  well- 
cut  business  dress,  guiltless  of  obvious  weaponry,  and 
plain  and  simple  in  speech.  Still  more  surprised  he 
might  be  to  learn  that  this  ranchman  does  not  live 
upon  his  ranch  at  all,  but  in  the  town  or  city,  perhaps 
many  miles  therefrom.  The  ranchman  may  have  an 
office  in  the  bank,  and  may  be  chief  stockholder  in 
that  institution  and  other  leading  concerns  of  his  town. 
He  may  be  a  member  of  the  Legislature,  or  sheriff  of 
his  county,  or  candidate  for  higher  office.  His  fam- 
ily may  have  a  son  in  college,  a  daughter  in  the  art 
school  of  a  distant  city.  The  ranch  itself,  if  discovered, 
may  be  simply  a  vast  and  partly  tilled  farm,  with  white- 
painted  buildings,  with  busy  tenantry,  and  much  mod- 
ern machinery  in  intelligent  use.  This  would  be  accu- 
rate description  of  a  ranch  in  the  South  to-day.  But 
it  would  be  accurate  only  in  particular,  not  in  general, 
and  it  would  never  satisfy  the  inquirer  who  knows 
something  of  what  ranch  life  once  was  and  is  to-day  in 
a  wide  and  wild  portion  of  the  Western  region. 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.  H 

If  we  sought  to  be  more  general  in  the  outlook  for 
a  ranch  fit  to  be  called  typically  Southern,,  we  should 
certainly  have  much  latitude  afforded  us.  Suppose  it 
to  be  in  the  Indian  Nations,  taking  it  at  that  time  be- 
fore the  Indians  had  grown  wise  in  their  day  and  gen- 
eration, and  before  the  United  States  Government  had 
evicted  many  of  those  opulent  tenants,  the  cattle  men  of 
the  nations.  Let  us  picture  our  ranch  as  lying  along 
some  timbered  stream,  such  as  the  Cimarron,  which 
flows  just  above  the  "  black-jack  "  country  of  the  Chey- 
ennes  and  Arapahoes.  Here  the  land  lies  in  long  swell- 
ing rolls'  and  ridges,  with  hills  of  short  oak  scrub,  and 
wide  intervals  of  prairie.  Into  the  main  stream  of 
the  river  flow  many  smaller  tributaries,  and  among 
these  are  some  little  creeks  heading  back  among  the 
hills  in  fresh,  unfailing  springs,  whose  waters  flow  al- 
ways sweet  and  abundant  throughout  the  year.  Fancy 
some  such  little  nook,  well  up  in  the  hills,  a  half  mile 
from  the  river,  and  in  imagination  surround  it  with 
the  forest  trees  which  should  grow  at  such  a  spot.  Well 
down  the  hillside,  sheltered  alike  by  the  hill  and  by 
the  forest  from  the  cold  winds  which  come  from  the 
north  in  winter,  stands  the  ranch  house.  It  is  made  of 
logs,  much  in  the  style  of  the  lumberman's  log  house  in 
the  pine  woods,  except  that  the  structure  is  more  care- 
less and  less  finished.  The  door  is  made  of  a  single 
thickness  of  unplaned  and  unmatched  boards.  It  hangs 
loose  upon  its  rough  wooden  hinges,  and  its  lo'ck  is  a 
rude  wooden  latch  the  string  whereof  literally  hangs 
upon  the  outside.  Wide  crocks  are  open  about  the 
edges  of  the  door  and  about  the  windows  and  between 
the  logs  at  the  sides  and  ends  of  the  room — for  there 
is  but  one  great  room  in  the  ranch  house  proper.  Along 
the  wall  of  this  vast  apartment  are  built  sleeping 
bunks,  similar  to  those  used  by  the  cabin  dwellers  of 


12  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  pine  woods.  There  is  little  furniture  except  a  rough 
table  or  two,  and  a  few  stools  or  broken  chairs.  The 
clothing  of  the  men  lies  under  the  bunks  or  hangs  on 
pegs  driven  in  the  wall;  for  trunks,  wardrobes,  or  pri- 
vate places  for  individual  properties  are  unknown  and 
unnecessary.  The  saddles,  bridles,  ropes,  and  other 
gear  hang  on  strong  pegs  in  the  covered  hallway  or 
open-front  room  which  connects  the  ranch  room  with 
the  cook  house.  This  connecting  room  or  open  hall  is 
also  the  lounging  place  of  the  many  dogs  and  hounds 
which  make  part  of  the  live  stock  of  the  place.  These 
dogs  are  used  in  the  constant  wolfing  operations,  and 
are  a  necessity  on  the  ranch,  but  with  them  a  continual 
feud  is  waged  alike  by  the  cook  from  whom  they  steal, 
and  the  foreman  with  whom  they  continually  endeavour 
to  sleep  at  night — this  by  reason  of  an  affection  much 
misplaced;  for  the  foreman  is  a  man  of  stern  ideas  of 
life.  The  cook  house  is  also  the  dining  hall,  and  here 
the  same  rude  arrangements  prevail  as  in  the  main 
apartment.  There  is  a  long  pine  table,  two  or  three 
long  wooden  benches,  perhaps  a  chair  or  two.  There 
is  a  good  cook  stove,  and  the  dishes  are  serviceable  and 
clean,  though  not  new  or  expensive.  The  cook  has  his 
bunk  in  the  kitchen,  and  is  left  alone  in  his  own  do- 
main, being  held  a  man  with  whom  it  were  not  well  to 
trifle. 

The  country  of  the  Nations  has  a  climate  hot  in 
summer,  though  not  extremely  cold  in  winter,  except 
for  occasional  cold  storms  of  wind  and  snow.  Such  a 
storm  is  called  a  "  norther  "  ;  by  which  we  may  know 
that  we  are  upon  a  Southern  ranch  or  one  manned  by 
Southern  cowmen.  In  the  North  the  same  storm  would 
be  a  "  blizzard."  On  this  range  shelter  for  the  cattle 
is  never  considered,  and  they  fare  well  in  the  timbered 
hollows  even  in  the  roughest  weather.  Hay  is  of  course 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        13 

something  little  known.  It  is  a  wild  country,  and  game 
is  abundant.  The  nearest  railway  point  is  one  hundred 
miles  to  the  north,  let  us  say,  at  least,  at  the  time  of  our 
visit.  The  ranchmen  do  not  see  civilization  more  than 
once  a  year.  They  are  lonely  and  glad  of  the  company 
of  an  occasional  deer  hunter  who  may  blunder  down 
into  the  forbidden  Indian  lands.  All  men  are  welcome 
at  the  ranch,  and  no  questions  are  asked  of  them.  Every 
visitor  goes  to  the  table  without  invitation,  and  there 
all  men  eat  in  silence.  One  has  seen  at  such  a  meal 
a  hunter,  a  neighbouring  ranchman  bound  for  his  place 
fifty  miles  below,  and  two  suspected  horse  thieves,  bound 
for  some  point  not  stated.  No  questions  were  asked 
of  any  of  them.  In  this  region,  where  news  is  the 
scarcest  of  commodities,  the  idea  of  gossip  is  unknown. 
The  habit  or  the  etiquette  of  the  cowboy  is  not  to  talk. 
He  is  silent  as  an  Indian.  The  ranch  boss  is  the  most 
taciturn  of  all.  The  visitor,  when  he  comes  to  take  his 
departure,  if  he  is  acquainted  with  the  ways  and  the 
etiquette  of  ranch  life,  does  not  think  of  offering  pay, 
no  matter  whether  his  stay  has  been  for  days,  weeks,  or 
months.  If  he  be  plainsman  and  not  "  pilgrim,"  no 
matter  whether  he  be  hunter,  ranchman,  or  horse  thief, 
he  simply  mounts,  says  "  So  long,"  and  rides  away. 
The  taciturn  foreman  says  "  So  long,"  and  goes  back 
to  work.  The  foreman's  name  may  be  Jim,  never  any- 
thing more,  about  the  place  and  among  his  own  men. 
On  the  neighbouring  ranges  or  at  the  round-up  he  is 
known  perhaps  as  the  "  foreman  on  the  Bar  Y."  Some 
of  the  cowboys  on  the  Bar  Y  may  be  diagnosed  to  have 
come  from  Texas  or  some  Southern  cattle  country. 
The  foreman  may  once  have  lived  in  Texas.  It  is  not 
etiquette  to  ask  him.  It  is  certain  that  he  is  a  good 
cowman. 

This  may  indicate  one  phase  of  ranch  life  south 


14  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  our  imaginary  boundary  line.  It  is,  however,  not 
comprehensive,  and  indeed  perhaps  not  typically 
Southern.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  traveller  has  fared 
far  to  the  south  of  the  Indian  Nations  into  the  country 
along  the  Gulf  coast  of  Texas.  Here  he  is  still  on  the 
cattle  range,  but  among  surroundings  distinctly  differ- 
ent from  those  of  the  Indian  Nations.  The  hardwood 
groves  have  disappeared  and  their  place  is  taken  by 
"  mottes  "  of  live  oaks,  whose  boughs  are  draped  in  the 
dismal  gray  of  the  funereal  Spanish  moss.  There  is  no 
word  now  of  swamp  or  brush  or  timber,  but  we  hear  of 
chaparral  and  cactus  and  mesquite.  We  are  at  the 
southern  extremity  of  the  great  cattle  range.  Here  the 
cattle  even  to-day  are  not  so  large  as  those  of  the  North. 
They  run  wild  through  a  tangle  of  thorn  and  branch 
and  brier.  For  miles  and  leagues — for  here  we  shall 
hear  also  of  "  leagues " — the  wilderness  stretches 
away,  dry,  desolate,  abominable.  Water  is  here  a  prize, 
a  luxury.  A  few  scanty  streams  trickle  down  to  the 
arms  of  the  salt  bays.  Across  some  such  small  stream 
the  cattle  man  has  thrown  a  great  dam,  costing  perhaps 
a  small  fortune,  and  built  by  an  engineer  not  afraid 
to  use  masonry,  for  he  knows  what  the  sudden  South- 
ern floods  may  mean.  Thus  is  formed  a  vast  "  tank," 
at  which  the  cattle  water,  coming  from  unknown  dis- 
tances to  quench  a  thirst  not  stayed  completely  by  the 
cactus  leaves  whose  thorns  line  their  mouths  as  they 
do  those  of  the  wild  deer  of  the  region.  These  tanks 
are  the  abode  of  vast  swarms  of  wild  fowl  which  come 
in  from  the  sea.  About  them  crowds  all  the  wild 
£ame  of  the  country.  In  the  mud  along  their  trampled 
banks  one  sees  the  footprint  of  the  cougar,  of  the  "  leop- 
ard cat,"  of  the  wild  deer,  the  wild  turkey,  the  wild 
hogs,  and  peccaries,  all  these  blending  with  the  tread 
of  the  many  wading  or  swimming  birds  which  find 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        15 

here  their  daily  rendezvous.  Sometimes  such  tanks  run 
far  into  the  open  country  back  of  the  "  wet  prairie/' 
as  the  sea  marsh  is  generally  called,  and  again  they  may 
run  close  down  to  the  salt  bays  which  make  in  from  the 
Gulf.  Sometimes  this  artificial  water  supply  of  the 
ranch  is  supplemented  by  a  few  natural  lagoons  of 
fresh  water,  which  rarely  go  entirely  dry.  These  lakes 
or  lagoons  or  broken  pond  holes  may  run  for  miles 
through  the  swales  in  the  coast  forest — a  forest  the 
most  forbidding  of  any  in  this  whole  great  country  in  its 
ominous  gray  desolation  of  twisted  trees  covered  with 
great  festoons  of  that  devil's  decoration,  the  Spanish 
moss.  It  is  a  thirsty  land,  this  of  the  brooding  South- 
west, this  land  of  warmth  and  plenty,  where  life  grows 
swiftly  and  is  swiftly  cut  down.  Here  the  cattle  mature 
and  breed  more  rapidly  than  in  the  North.  They  range 
over  many  miles  of  country,  many  of  them  forever  un- 
known and  uncounted,  for  the  round-up  in  no  part  of 
the  Western  range  is  more  trying  than  in  the  pathless 
thorny  chaparral,  where  the  rider  can  see  but  a  few 
yards  about  him  and  where  no  general  view  is  ever 
possible.  Water  is  the  one  needful  thing,  and  water  is 
the  loadstone  which  draws  to  view  the  cattle  man's 
wealth  as  nothing  else  could  do;  for  the  cattle  must 
drink. 

They  must  drink,  even  though  the  suns  of  summer 
dry  up  the  water  pools  till  they  are  but  masses  of  slime 
and  mud,  till  they  are  worse  than  dry — till  they  have 
become  traps  and  pitfalls  more  deadly  than  any  that 
human  ingenuity  could  devise.  Into  these  treacherous 
abysses  of  bottomless  and  sticky  mud  the  famished 
creatures  wade,  seeking  a  touch  of  water  for  their 
tongues.  Weakened  already  by  their  long  thirst,  they 
struggle  and  plunge  hopelessly  in  their  attempt  to  get 
back  to  solid  land.  The  hands  of  the  waterless  bogs 


16  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

hold  them  down.  For  a  day  the  creature  holds  its 
head  clear  of  the  mud.  Then  its  head  sinks  down. 
Lucky  is  it  if  there  be  water  enough  to  make  the  mud 
soft,  so  that  it  soon  covers  the  nostrils  and  cuts  off 
the  toiling  breath.  Above  these  traps  of  death  clouds  of 
buzzards  are  always  soaring.  Others  drape  the  dismal 
live  oaks  in  lines  of  sombre  black,  blending  fitly  with 
the  sombre  gray  of  the  hanging  moss.  Along  the  banks 
of  such  dried  water  holes  there  are  always  lying  hun- 
dreds of  skeletons.  The  loss  of  life  is  unknown  and 
uncounted.  Horses,  cows,  calves,  all  the  animals  of  the 
range  perish  here  yearly  in  unestimated  numbers.  The 
loss  of  wealth  is  frightful  in  the  aggregate,  yet  it  is  one 
of  the  ways  of  the  cattle  trade  never  to  regard  it  and 
to  take  no  means  of  preventing  it.  Indeed,  nothing  can 
be  done  to  prevent  it.  It  is  the  way  of  Nature.  The 
rancher  of  the  southern  range  will  say  to  you  that  you 
shall  have  as  your  own  property  every  horse  you  shall 
pull  out  of  the  mud,  every  horned  head  that  you  shall 
save  from  death  in  the  depth  of  the  waterless  bogs.  But 
though  you  take  pony  and  rope  and  drag  out  helpless 
victim  after  victim,  what  then  shall  you  do?  They 
die  upon  the  banks  because  they  can  not  travel  to  other 
water,  if  indeed  there  be  any  other  water  within  many 
miles.  The  tragedy  goes  on  year  after  year,  to  what 
extent  no  one  knows.  The  rancher  comes  to  be  en- 
tirely careless  of  it.  The  business  pf  cattle  ranching  is 
primarily  but  a  rude  overlapping  of  the  ways  of  Nature, 
and  to  Nature's  care  and  protection  are  left  the  creatures 
whose  lives  are  only  partially  taken  in  charge  by  their 
human  owners. 

These  untrodden  wildernesses  of  the  coast  range 
are  now,  strange  to  say,  threaded  by  long  lines  of  wire 
fence.  A  "  pasture  "  is  an  inclosed  tract  of  land  per- 
haps forty  or  fifty  miles  square.  In  the  long  wire 


THE  RANCH  IX  THE  SOUTH.        17 

boundary  fence  there  may  not  be  a  gate  for  twenty 
miles.  The  hunter  who  is  lost  there  feels  fortunate  if 
he  finds  one  of  these  long  fences.  Yet  many  a  hunter, 
and  many  a  new  man  on  the  range  has  found  such  a 
fence  and  followed  it  until  he  fell,  mad  with  a  thirst 
which  he  found  no  way  of  appeasing.  The  gray  oaks 
and  the  evil  cacti  and  the  curled  mesquite  smile  bitterly 
to-day  over  many  such  unfound  wanderers.  The  native 
cowboys  and  range  men  know  where  the  trail  goes, 
where  the  gates  are,  where  the  ranch  house  is — far  back, 
let  us  suppose,  on  the  high  prairie,  where  the  windmills 
furnish  sweet  water  in  an  unfailing  supply.  This  house 
may  be  built  of  boards,  simply  and  modestly,  and  it 
possibly  is  left  unpainted.  The  house  itself  is  a  long  and 
low  one,  with  but  a  single  story,  and  constructed  with 
a  wide  hall  extending  through,  so  that  the  wind  may 
blow  in  with  what  coolness  it  can  claim  in  the  torrid 
summer  days.  The  rooms  are  large  and  airy,  and  the 
furniture  is  comfortable.  There  are  green  trees  about 
this  house,  cottonwoods  that  have  grown  up  tall  and 
thin  at  the  edge  of  the  slender  streams  of  water  wasted 
from  the  windmill,  and  some  audacious  hand  has  ac- 
tually planted  flowers  about  a  small  plat  of  precious 
green.  Apart  from  the  house  of  the  owner,  which  is  at 
times  occupied  by  himself  and  family,  there  is  another 
and  larger  building  of  ruder  furnishing.  Here  we  find 
an  interior  not  widely  different  from  that  of  the  ranch 
in  the  Indian  Nations.  We  may  find  here,  too,  per- 
haps, a  foreman  whose  only  name  is  Jim.  He  has  been 
foreman  on  the  Star  D  for  many  years. 

This  country  of  the  Texas  coast  is  very  hot,  except 
in  winter  when  the  "  northers  "  come,  which  chill  the 
blood  so  strangely  and  which  often  kill  hundreds  of  the 
weaker  cattle  with  their  mysterious,  penetrating  cold. 
Snow  is  never  known  here,  and  of  winter  as  it  is  under- 


18  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

stood  in  the  North  there  is  practically  none.  The  rain- 
fall during  the  summer  is  extremely  scant.  All  about 
the  ranch  house,  miles  and  miles,  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
reach,  the  surface  of  the  earth  is  gray  and  cheerless, 
with  few  trees  inside  the  range  of  the  low  coast  timber 
or  chaparral.  The  hot  sun  in  summer  sets  all  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth  a-tremble,  so  that  it  moves  and  heaves 
and  writhes.  On  the  horizon  float  the  strange  pictures 
of  the  mirage.  All  men  know  there  is  no  water  where 
the  mirage  beckons.  The  water,  rare,  small,  precious,  is 
here,  a  jewel  in  this  circle  of  green,  this  oasis  in  the  ap- 
parent desert  of  the  range. 

Such  is  another  ranch  of  the  South.  But  with  de- 
scription so  partial  and  imperfect  we  shall  not  even  yet 
have  covered  our  text  sufficiently  well  to  entitle  us  to 
leave  it.  We  shall  have  left  untouched  and  unindi- 
cated  a  vast  territory  of  the  Southern  range  where  the 
cattle  industry  flourished  for  generations  before  it  was 
dreamed  of  in  the  North.  Suppose  we  move  yet  some 
hundreds  of  miles  into  the  far  Southwest,  coming  to 
that  long  arm  of  Spanish  civilization  which  projects 
up  from  Mexico  into  the  United  States,  last  and  lax 
hold  upon  a  region  which  once  bore  the  flag  of  Spain. 
Here,  if  anywhere  to-day  upon  the  cattle  range,  the 
ways  of  the  past  prevail,  and  here  we  shall  find  an 
environment  as  odd  and  picturesque  as  any.  The  Pecos 
and  the  Rio  Grande  rivers  bound  a  vast  and  ill-known 
region,  which  has  mountains  and  plains  untraversed  by 
the  foot  of  the  American  tourist.  Here  we  shall  find  vil- 
lages unmarked  on  any  map.  We  shall  find  men  who  in 
all  their  lives  have  never  seen  a  railroad  train  nor  heard 
the  sound  of  the  church-going  bell.  Life  here,  beyond 
that  of  any  section  of  the  United  States,  is  ancient, 
simple,  unprogressive,  and  truly  pastoral  in  its  features. 
In  this  far-away  corner  of  the  land  the  ways  of  modern 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        19 

life  are  slow  to  penetrate.  The  impact  of  Anglo-Saxon 
civilization  is  taken  up  by  the  vis  inertice  of  the  old 
Spanish  ways.  The  vigorous  Northerner  becomes  in 
a  few  years  a  slow-spoken  and  deliberate  New  Mexican. 
The  cloudless  blue  sky,  the  soft  warm  air,  the  unvary- 
ing equanimity  of  Nature  will  have  none  of  haste  or 
worry.  The  country  makes  all  men  its  own.  It  softens 
and  blends  and  harmonizes  all  things  and  all  men  into 
its  own  indifferent  calm. 

The  tone  of  our  landscape  here  is  not  light,  but 
deep  in  tint,  a  rich  red  brown  which  shades  off  into  the 
plains  and  back  into  the  darker  colours  of  the  mountains. 
You  would  call  absolutely  barren  these  wide  tracts  of 
land  which  lie  shimmering  and  throbbing  in  the  un- 
screened sun.  The  soil  appears  to  be  worthless  sand  or 
coarse  baked  earth.  As  you  look  out  over  such  a  coun- 
try you  can  not  believe  it  possible  that  it  would  support 
any  animate  life,  unless  it  were  this  lizard  upon  the 
rock,  or  this  hideous  horned  toad  which  crawls  away 
from  under  foot,  or  these  noisy  prairie  dogs  which  yelp 
here  as  they  do  upon  the  northern  range.  Yet  this 
soil  carries  the  rich  gramma  grass,  whose  little  scattered 
tufts,  not  so  large  or  so  gray  as  those  of  the  buffalo  grass, 
cure  and  curl  down  upon  the  ground  and  form  a  range 
food  of  wondrous  fattening  quality. 

We  are  in  a  mountain  country  here.  The  table- 
lands on  which  the  cattle  graze  are  more  than  four 
thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  The  smaller 
table-lands  or  mesas  are  still  more  lofty.  The  foothills 
run  up  above  six  thousand  feet,  and  back  of  these  are 
mountains,  sometimes  low  and  brown,  sometimes  black 
with  the  heavy  growth  of  pinons,  sometimes  high 
enough  to  have  white  tops  for  many  months  in  winter. 
Snow  never  falls  at  this  latitude  over  the  lower  valleys 
and  mesas.  Hay  is  rarely  seen,  except  as  imported  in 


20  THE  STORY   OF  THE   COWBOY. 

bales.  The  native  Mexican  sometimes  makes  a  faint 
eil'ort  to  cut  a  little'  hay,  but  does  his  mowing  with  a 
c-lumsy  hoe.  His  grainfields  are  but  little  patches,  and 
the  reaping  is  done  altogether  with  a  sickle.  In  every 
way  this  is  an  ancient  and  pastoral  land. 

We  are  far  down  in  the  lower  end  of  the  great  Eocky 
range,  and  at  a  point  where  little  detached  ranges  and 
spurs  run  out  from  the  main  chain  and  make  small 
mountain  systems,  each  with  a  Spanish  name  of  its  own. 
We  hear  of  the  San  Miguels,  the  Oscuras,  the  Sacra- 
mentos,  the  Magdalenas,  the  Capitans,  the  Nogales,  the 
Bonitos,  the  Blancos,  the  Patos,  the  Carrizos.  Out  of 
each  of  these  little  subranges  runs  some  one  or  more 
mountain  streams,  each  stream  called  a  rio,  or  river, 
no  matter  how  small  it  may  be.  This  high  table-land 
is  a  waterless  country.  It  may  be  that  only  one  or  two 
scant  water  holes  are  known  in  a  space  of  a  hundred  or 
two  hundred  miles.  A  tiny  well  is  a  treasure.  A  rio  is 
a  fortune.  In  this  region  of  rainless  skies  water  is  the 
one  priceless  thing. 

The  small  river  tumbles  swiftly  down  out  of  the 
mountains,  as  any  mountain  stream,  and  it  bears  the 
mountain  trout  as  do  the  waters  of  the  upper  ranges; 
yet  after  it  has  emerged  from  the  mountains  and  passed 
through  the  foothills  its  course  is  very  brief.  In  a  few 
miles,  perhaps  twenty,  forty,  or  fifty  miles,  it  sinks  and 
is  lost  forever  in  the  sands  of  the  plains.  Many  miles' 
beyond  there  may  be  another  river  arising  from  the 
sand  and  struggling  on  a  little  way  in  the  attempt  to 
reach  the  Pecos  or  the  Rio  Grande.  Without  doubt 
these  waters  are  connected  with  the  great  sheet  of  water 
which  underlies  all  that  region,  and  which  will  some- 
time be  brought  up  by  man  to  make  this  desert  blossom. 
What  there  may  be  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
however,  does  not  concern  our  Mexican  ranchero.  It 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        21 

is  enough  for  him  that  his  father  and  his  father's  father 
held  the  land  and  owned  the  cattle.  Bills  of  sale  record- 
ing the  curious  old  Spanish  brands  have  been  in  his 
family  for  a  long  time. 

This  is  an  old  cattle  country.  Countless  rodeos  have 
crossed  these  hills.  Innumerable  branding  irons  have 
been  heated  in  the  pinon  fires  of  these  corrals.  None 
the  less,  this  is  in  America,  and  hither  the  American  cat- 
tle man  was  sure  to  come,  in  search  of  opportunity  to 
follow  the  calling  which  offered  to  him  so  much  of 
wealth  and  so  much  of  fascination.  His  money  or  his 
methods  were  sure  to  make  him  a  place  even  in  so  old 
and  well-covered  a  country. 

Let  us  suppose  that  we  have  come  upon  some  such 
modern  ranch,  down  in  this  ancient  part  of  the  cattle 
range.  Back  of  the  home  ranch  house  there  is  a  moun- 
tain range,  which  seems  to  be  only  a  few  miles  away, 
but  which  is  really  more  than  fifty  miles  distant.  It 
may  be  that  the  presence  of  the  mountains  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  water  supply  of  the  ranch.  There 
are  known  to  be  several  springs  up  in  the  mountains, 
and  indeed  the  ranch  owner  has  also  purchased  these, 
and  has  erected  near  them  log  houses  from  the  timber 
of  the  mountains  near  at  hand,  each  house  being 
the  home  of  its  own  party  of  the  range  riders.  Between 
the  foot  of  these  mountains  and  the  "home  ranch  "  there 
is  no  stream  of  water  nor  any  sign  of  one,  nothing  but 
a  dreary  expanse  of  brown  and  gray  desolation.  Yet 
here,  by  the  ranch  house,  protected  by  a  heavy  fence 
from  the  intrusion  of  the  animals,  there  bursts  up  out 
of  the  ground  a  strong  spring  of  fresh  water,  strongly 
alkaline  to  be  sure,  but  exceedingly  valuable.  This 
spring  is  the  raison.  d'etre  of  the  ranch  house  at  this 
point,  out  on  the  wide  plain,  and  far  from  the  shelter 
of  the  arms  of  the  mountain. 
3 


22  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

The  waters  of  the  great  spring,  carefully  led  and 
utilized,  form  at  a  distance  of  a  mile  or  so  from  the 
house  a  shallow  expanse  or  pool  to  which  the  cat- 
tle, over  a  range  of  probably  twenty-five  or  thirty 
miles,  *come  regularly  to  drink.  The  range  near  the 
water  is  much  eaten  down,  so  the  animals  go  far  out 
upon  the  plains  to  feed.  They  do  not  come  to  water 
every  day,  perhaps  sometimes  not  even  so  often  as 
once  in  every  other  day.  An  idler  at  the  water  pool, 
lying  in  wait  for  the  antelope  which  often  come  in  to 
water  with  the  cattle,  may  see  far  away  upon  the  hori- 
zon, toward  the  middle  of  the  day,  long  trails  and  col- 
umns of  dust,  which  grow  more  distinct  as  the  moments 
pass,  until  they  are  seen  to  be  caused  by  the  hurrying 
squads  of  cattle  coming  in  to  water.  They  depart  as 
they  came,  upon  a  rapid  gallop,  and  their  habit  is 
one  of  the  most  singular  things  of  the  cattle  range. 
Northern  farm  cattle  would  perish  here,  but  these 
are  animals  seasoned  for  generations  to  this  environ- 
ment. 

The  ranch  house  here  is  an  edifice  entirely  distinct  in 
type,  the  adobe,  typical  dwelling  of  the  Spanish  South- 
west. Never  was  human  habitation  more  nicely  adapt- 
ed than  this  to  the  necessities  of  the  country  which 
produced  it.  No  heat  can  penetrate  these  walls,  more 
than  three  feet  thick,  of  the  sun-dried  native  brick  or 
"  'dobe."  The  building  is  exactly  the  color  of  the 
surrounding  earth,  and  stands  square  and  flat  topped, 
like  a  great  box  thrown  upon  the  ground.  The  roof, 
which  has  but  the  slightest  slant  from  ridge  to  eaves, 
is  made  of  heavy  beams  which  hold  up  a  covering,  two 
or  three  feet  in  thickness,  of  hard,  dry  earth.  This  roof 
serves  to  turn  the  rain  during  the  short  rainy  season  of 
midsummer,  and  moreover  it  stops  the  vivid  rays  of 
the  half-tropic  sun.  Within  the  'dobe  it  is  always  cool, 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        23 

for  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  this  climate  that  the  heat  is  felt 
only  when  one  is  exposed  directly  to  the  sun. 

The  interior  of  this  ranch  house  is  rather  attractive, 
with  its  walls  whitewashed  with  gypsum,,  its  deep  win- 
dow embrasures,  and  its  hard  dirt  floor  swept  clean,  as 
though  it  were  made  of  wood.  A  former  owner,  let  us 
say  a  wild  young  man  whose  family  wished  him  to  settle 
down,  but  who  could  not  long  remain  settled  at  any- 
thing, once  sought  to  beautify  this  place.  He  put  lace 
curtains  at  the  windows,  and  at  great  expense  brought 
out  a  piano  from  the  railroad,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  away.  He  even  essayed  rugs  and  pictures.  Other 
times  have  brought  other  customs.  The  present  owner 
cares  more  for  his  water  front  than  for  his  curtains. 
The  cowboys  are  welcome  to  come  into  this  house. 
They  throw  their  saddles  down  upon  the  bed  or  into 
the  bath  tub  which  once  the  former  owner  cherished. 
They  go  to  sleep  under  the  piano.  One  has  seen  their 
spurs,  as  they  slept,  tangled  in  the  lace  curtains  of  the 
windows.  There  is  no  one  to  order  otherwise  or  to  care 
otherwise.  Lace  curtains  have  little  to  do  with  raising 
cattle.  There  is  no  woman  about  the  place.  Nearly  a 
dozen  men  live  here.  The  head  of  the  domestic  econo- 
my is  the  cook,  a  German  who  was  once  a  sailor.  The 
responsible  man  of  the  outfit  is  the  foreman,  whose  name 
is  Jim,  and  who  may  have  come  from  Texas.  One  does 
not  know  his  other  name.  Jim  is  dark-haired,  broad- 
shouldered,  taciturn,  direct  of  gaze. 

A  second  building,  also  of  adobe,  stands  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  main  ranch  house,  and  this  serves 
as  general  quarters  for  the  men  as  well  as  for  kitch- 
en and  dining  hall.  The  structure,  oddly  enough, 
follows  very  closely  the  plan  of  the  ranch  house  seen 
in  the  Indian  Nations.  There  are  really  two  buildings, 
connected  by  a  covered  way  or  open-air  hall,  which  is 


24  THE  STORY  OP  THE  COWBOY. 

open  in  front,  and  which  serves  as  saddle  room  and 
storage  place  for  odds  and  ends.  The  beds  are  merely 
bunks  where  the  men  unroll  their  blankets.  In  this 
•country  no  man  travels  without  taking  his  blankets 
with  him.  The  furniture  of  the  kitchen  is  simple,  the 
dishes  mostly  of  tin  or  ironstone  china.  The  cook, 
who  was  a  sailor,  never  learned  to  cook.  To  suit  the 
local  taste  he  makes  feeble  efforts  at  the  peppery  Span- 
ish methods.  Butter  and  milk  are,  of  course,  unknown 
on  this  ranch,  as  they  are  on  all  the  ranches  of  the  genu- 
ine cattle  range,  although  thousands  of  cows  are  all 
about.  There  is  no  historical  record  of  any  such  event 
as  a  cowboy  being  asked  to  milk  a  cow,  nor  is  it  likely 
that  anything  so  improbable  ever  happened,  for  had  it 
occurred,  the  cowboy  must  surely  have  evidenced  his 
feelings  over  such  a  request  in  a  manner  interesting 
enough  to  be  preserved  among  the  traditions  of  the 
range. 

At  table  each  man  takes  off  his  "  gun,"  this  being 
one  of  the  little  courtesies  of  the  land,  but  no  one  re- 
moves his  hat  of  deliberate  intention.  It  is  polite  for 
a  stranger  arriving  at  the  ranch  to  leave  his  belt  and 
revolver  hanging  on  the  pommel  of  his  saddle,  or  to  lay 
them  aside  upon  entering  the  house.  This  is  delicate 
proof  that  he  is  not  "looking  for  any  one."  The  coun- 
try at  the  time  of  which  we  write  is  wild  and  lawless, 
and  human  life  is  very  cheap.  Each  cowpuncher  rides 
on  his  daily  work  with  a  Winchester  in  the  holster  under 
his  leg,  and  carries  at  his  hip  the  inevitable  .45  re- 
volver. The  latter  he  may  use  for  a  chance  shot  at 
an  antelope  or  deer^a  coyote  or  a  wolf,  and  it  is  handy 
for  the  killing  of  an  occasional  rattlesnake — whose 
presence,  curled  up  under  the  shade  of  a  Spanish  bayo- 
net plant,  the  cow  pony  is  sure  to  detect  and  indicate 
by  jumps  and  snorts  of  the  most  intense  dislike.  In  the 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        25 

hands  of  the  cowpuncher  the  revolver  is  a  practical 
weapon.  One  recalls  that  one  evening  a  cowboy  came 
into  camp  with  the  tails  of  four  "  crogers  "  (cougar — 
the  mountain  lion)  which  he  said  he  had  met  in  a  body 
at  a  little  piece  of  chaparral.  He  seemed  to  think  he 
had  done  nothing  extraordinary  in  killing  these  ani- 
mals with  his  revolver.  At  times  the  foreman,  Jim, 
has  been  known  to  bring  home  an  antelope  which  he 
has  killed  with  his  "  six-shooter,"  but  this  is  a  feat 
rarely  performed,  and  only  to  be  attempted  successfully 
by  a  master  of  the  weapon. 

Each  home  ranch  has  a  corral,  and  the  corral  of 
the  Circle  Arrow  outfit  is  worthy  of  our  consideration. 
It  is  constructed  of  the  most  picturesquely  crooked 
cedar  logs,  and  there  is  not  a  nail  in  its  whole  com- 
position. It  is"  lashed  together  with  rawhide  at  each 
joint  or  fastening,  the  hide  being  put  on  wet,  and  dry- 
ing afterward  into  a  rigid  and  steellike  binding,  which 
nothing  less  than  a  cataclysm  could  shake  loose  or  tear 
apart.  We  are  here  upon  the  Spanish- American  cattle 
range,  and  since  time  immemorial  rawhide  has  been  the 
natural  material  of  the  Mexican. 

Most  of  the  cowboys  employed  on  the  Circle  Ar- 
row outfit  are  Mexicans,  or  "  Greasers,"  as  all  Mexi- 
cans are  called  by  the  American  inhabitants.  Their 
high-peaked  hats,  tight  trousers  and  red  sashes  make 
them  picturesque  objects.  These  men  do  not  speak 
any  English,  being  popularly  supposed  to  be  too  lazy 
to  learn  it.  The  speech  of  the  American  cowpunch- 
ers,  on  the  other  hand,  is  nearly  as  much  Mexican 
as  English,  and  in  common  conversation  many  Span- 
ish words  are  met,  permanently  engrafted  upon  the 
local  tongue  and  used  in  preference  to  their  English 
equivalents.  For  instance,  one  rarely  hears  the  word 
"  yes,"  it  being  usually  given  as  the  Spanish  "  si."  The 


26  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

small  numerals,  one,  two,  etc.,  are  usually  spoken  in 
Spanish,  as  u?w,  dos,  etc.  A  horse  is  nearly  always 
called  caballo,  a  man  an  lionibre,  a  woman  a  "  moharrie  " 
(mujer).  Even  cattle  are  sometimes  called  vacas, 
though  this  is  not  usual.  The  cow  man  of  any  range 
clings  closely  to  the  designation  "  cows  "  for  all  the 
horned  creatures  in  his  possession.  Every  one  says 
agua  when  meaning  "  water."  The  Spanish  diminu- 
tives are  in  common  use  in  the  English  speech  of  this 
region,  as  chico,  chiquito.  The  cowboy  will  speak  of  the 
"cavvieyah"  or  "cavvieyard"  (caballado}  instead  of  the 
".horse  herd."  One  hears  poco  tiempo  instead  of  "  pret- 
ty soon  ";  and  this  expression  as  coming  from  a  native 
he  will  learn  all  too  well,  as  also  the  expression  manana 
(to-morrow),  which  really  means  "  maybe  sometime, 
but  probably  never." 

There 'are  many  common  descriptive  words  used 
in  the  ranch  work  which  would  be  strange  to  the 
Northern  rancher,  such  as  rincon,  salado,  rio,  mesa, 
etc.;  and  many  of  the  proper  names  would  seem  un- 
usual, as  applied  to  the  Mexican  cow  hands,  slim,  dark, 
silent  fellows,  each  with  a  very  large  hat  and  a  very 
small  cigarette,  who  answer  as  Jose,  Juan,  Pablo,  San- 
chez, or  Antone,  and  who  when  they  are  uncertain  an- 
swer, as  do  all  their  American  fellows,  with  the  all- 
convenient  reply,  "  Quien  sake !  "  ("  kin  savvy,"  as  the 
cowpuncher  says). 

The  Northern  ranch  country  got  most  of  its  cus- 
toms, with  its  cattle,  from  the  Spanish- American  cattle 
country,  and  the  latter  "has  stamped  upon  the  industry 
not  only  its  methods  but  some  of  its  speech.  The  cow- 
boy's "  chaps  "  are  the  chaparejos  of  the  Spaniard,  \\  ho 
invented  them.  Such  words  as  latigo,  aparejo,  "broncho 
are  current  all  through  the  Northern  mountain  and 
plains  region,  and  are  firmly  fixed  in  the  vocabulary  of 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  SOUTH.        27 

the  cow  country  of  the  entire  West.  Indeed,  widely 
sundered  as  they  are  in  geographical  respects,  it  is  but 
an  easy  and  natural  subsequent  step,  in  manners,  speech, 
and  customs,  from  the  ranch  of  the  South  to  its  close 
neighbour,  the  ranch  of  the  North. 


CHAPTEE   III. 

THE    RANCH    IN    THE    NORTH. 

IT  was  in  the  North  that  there  was  first  established 
what  one  would  think  an  obvious  principle,  though  it 
was  one  which  the  Texas  rancher  was  slow  to  recognise — 
namely,  that  a  fatted  animal  is  worth  more  in  the  mar- 
ket than  a  lean  one.  On  the  range  of  the  Southwest 
a  cow  was  a  cow,  a  "  beef  " — any  animal  over  four  years 
of  age — was  a  beef,  no  matter  what  the  individual  differ- 
ences. Far  into  the  days  of  the  cattle  trade  all  Texas  cat- 
tle were  sold  by  the  head  and  not  by  weight.  The 
Northern  rancher  was  the  one  to  end  this  practice.  He 
did  not  drive  to  market  the  sweepings  of  his  range. 
Moreover,  he  saw  that  the  beef-producing  qualities  of 
the  old  long-horned  Texas  breed  could  be  much  im- 
proved by  the  admixture  of  more  approved  blood.  The 
cattle  of  England  met  the  cattle  of  Spain,  to  the  ulti- 
mate overcoming  of  the  Southern  type.  In  less  than 
five  years  after  the  first  Texas  cattle  came  upon  the 
territorial  ranges,  the  latter  were  sending  better  cattle 
to  Texas,  over  the  very  trail  that  had  brought  the  first 
stock  from  the  lower  range.  To-day  the  centre  of  the 
beef  cattle  trade  is  on  the  Northern  range,  and  it  is 
some  portion  of  that  range  which  the  average  Northern 
man  has  in  mind  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  cattle  coun- 
try." 

Yet  it  is  a  vast  country,  this  Northern  cattle  range. 
'28 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        29 

The  edge  of  the  Dakota  grass  lands  would  make  a  little 
state.  The  basin  of  the  Big  Horn  alone  is  as  large  as 
any  two  New  England  States.  There  are  mountain 
parks  in  Colorado  which  would  hold  a  principality, 
and  the  plains  of  Wyoming  are  wider  than  are  many 
European  kingdoms.  The  ranch  in  the  North  may 
be  a  dugout,  well  to  the  east  in  cold  Dakota,  where  some 
hardy  soul  has  determined  to  try  the  experiment  of 
bringing  at  least  a  portion  of  his  cattle  through  the 
bitter  winter.  It  may  be  a  cabin  in  the  wild  region 
of  the  Bad  Lands,  that  Titanic  playground  of  creative 
evil  spirits,  where  the  red  scoria  buttes  and  banks,  peak 
after  peak,  and  minaret  and  tower  and  high  cathedral, 
all  in  parti-coloured  clays,  are  burned  out  of  the  earth  to 
endure  and  mock  the  dreams  of  man  the  architect.  The 
ranch  may  be  a  hut  in  some  high  mountain  valley, 
where  the  bold  summits  of  the  white-topped  moun- 
tains sweep  about  in  the  wild  beauty  of  the  Snowy 
Range.  Again,  it  may  be  a  sod  house,  built  on  some 
wide  bleak  plain,  where  the  wind  never  is  still,  and 
where  the  white  alkali  cuts  and  sears  the  unseasoned 
skin.  It  is  somewhere  upon  that  vast,  high,  hard,  and 
untilled  table-land  which  runs  from  the  Gulf  coast  to 
the  British  possessions,  upon  the  eastern  slope  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains. 

This  is  a  land  of  little  rain  and  of  infrequent 
water  courses,  but  a  land  where  cattle  can  live  the 
year  through  without  the  aid  of  man,  summer  and 
winter,  upon  the  short  gray  grass  which  grows  in 
abundance  all  over  the  former  range  of  the  buffalo. 
This  upper  portion  of  the  great  plateau  is  dry  enough 
to  be  classified  as  belonging  to  the  arid  lands,  but  is 
nevertheless  watered  much  better  than  the  southern 
range.  The  streams  are  larger  and  more  frequent,  and 
are  not  so  apt  to  go  entirely  dry  in  the  droughty  season. 


30  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  summer.  The  snows  are  heavier  in  winter,  and  the 
rainfall  of  the  spring  months  is  relatively  more  abun- 
dant, so  that  the  grasses  are  much  better  nourished  and 
are  not  burned  out  so  cruelly  as  in  the  South.  Under 
such  conditions  the  cattle  of  the  plains  were  found  to 
grow  far  more  bulky  than  in  the  Southern  country. 
Moreover,  the  upper  part  of  what  is  now  the  northern 
range  was  still  open  and  unsettled  at  a  time  when  a 
great  body  of  population  was  pressing  up  to  the  edge  of 
these  plains,  looking  for  new  country  and  new  grazing 
grounds,  and  only  waiting  for  the  Army  to  clear  away 
the  hostile  Indians  sufficiently  to  make  the  region  safe 
for  occupancy.  Indeed,  long  before  the  Indians  had 
been  removed,  and  before  the  range  was  anything  bet- 
ter than  a  dangerous  Indian  hunting  ground,  the  ad- 
venturous ranchmen  had  been  all  over  it,  and  were  liv- 
ing there,  scattered  about  here  and  there,  and  already 
engaged  in  the  early  and  cruder  stages  of  their  calling. 
After  the  years  of  1868  and  1869  the  Northern 
country  was  occupied,  as  if  by  magic,  by  the  herds  of 
the  enterprising  ranchers  who  saw  the  rapid  wealth 
that  was  to  be  accumulated  under  the  conditions  of 
the  trade  in  a  new  and  favourable  region.  Cattle 
bought  at  a  few  dollars  per  head,  delivered  on  the  range 
free  of  freight  charge,  raised  "  on  air,"  and  free  air 
at  that,  attended  by  a  few  men  to  many  hundred  head 
of  cattle,  and  sold  in  a  few  years  at  prices  four  or  five 
times  the  first  cost  per  head — surely  it  was  no  wonder 
that  at  once  an  enormous  industry  sprang  up,  one  that 
attracted  the  interest  of  conservative  capital  in  this 
country,  and  invited  floods  of  capital  not  so  wise  from 
other  lands.  Enthusiastic  at  the  prospect  of  early 
wealth,  and  enamoured  of  the  manly  and  independent 
life  that  offered,  very  many  young  men  of  the  Eastern 
States,  some  with  money  and  financial  resources,  some 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        31 

with  only  hope  and  a  branding  iron,  plunged  into  the 
cattle  business  of  the  upper  ranges.  Many  of  these 
made  money,  and  all  of  them  brought  energy  and  a 
certain  amount  of  new  intelligence  to  their  chosen  call- 
ing. The  Southern  rancher  perhaps  grew  up  in  the 
trade,  knowing  no  other,  whereas  sometimes  the  North- 
ern rancher  was  a  new  man,  who  learned  the  business 
later  in  life.  None  the  less  the  cattle  industry  re- 
ceived a  tremendous  impetus  in  a  very  brief  time,  old 
men  and  new  studying  the  requirements  of  the  new 
countries  opened,  and  uniting  in  perfecting  the  opera- 
tions of  the  range  in  every  possible  respect  of  system 
and  detail. 

Already  there  was  upon  the  range  an  instructor,  a 
guide,  and  a  practical  leader,  waiting  to  take  charge  of 
every  phase  of  the  cattle  business.  The  cowpuncher 
appeared  upon  the  Northern  plains  as  rapidly  and  mys- 
teriously as  the  thousands  of  cattle.  It  were  bootless 
to  ask  whence  he  came.  From  the  earlier  Southern 
regions  originally,  no  doubt,  but  not  in  all  his  num- 
bers. He  drifted  in  upon  these  upper  ranges  from 
every  corner  of  the  globe.  There  was  always  upon  the 
Western  frontier  a  press  of  hardy  young  men,  born  and 
inured  to  the  rude  conditions  of  the  life  beyond  the 
line  of  the  towns,  and  the  natural  fitness  and  natural 
longings  of  these  led  them  readily  into  the  free  out- 
door life  of  this  peculiar  calling.  Some  would-be  ranch 
owners,  failing  in  their  undertakings,  settled  back  into 
the  occupation  of  the  cowboy.  Wild  and  hardy  young 
men  from  other  countries  came  in,  attracted  by  the 
loadstone  of  freedom  and  adventure,  ever  potent  upon 
hot-headed  youth. 

The  range  riders  had  odd  timber  among  them, 
men  rude  and  unlettered,  and  men  of  culture  and 
ability.  Quite  a  noticeable  feature  of  the  new  cattle 


32  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

country  was  the  influx  of  young  men  of  good  family 
who  became  infatuated  with  the  cowboy's  life  and 
followed  it  for  a  time,  perhaps  never  to  forsake  the 
plains  again.  In  the  late  '?0?s  and  early  ?80's  one  might 
often  see  strange  company  in  the  great  cattle  yards  at 
Kansas  City,  where  the  train  loads  of  Western  cattle 
came  in  charge  of  the  men  who  had  had  them  in  care 
upon  the  range.  Among  groups  of  these  men,  often 
rough  looking  and  roughly  clad,  and  sitting  sometimes 
on  the  ground  in  the  shade  of  the  cattle  cars,  one  might 
perhaps  hear  in  progress  a  conversation  which  he  would 
rather  have  expected  to  hear  in  an  Eastern  drawing 
room.  It  was  no  unusual  thing  to  see  men  clad  in 
regulation  cowpuncher  garb  reading  a  copy  of  the  latest 
monthly  magazine  or  a  volume  of  the  classics.  This 
may  have  been  reversion  to  early  habit,  and  such  men 
may  or  may  not  have  remained  in  the  calling. 

Certainly  the  man  aspiring  to  the  title  of  cowboy 
needed  to  have  stern  stuff  in  him.  He  must  be  equal 
to  the  level  of  the  rude  conditions  of  the  life,  or  he 
was  soon  forced  out  of  the  society  of  the  craft.  In  one 
way  or  another  the  ranks  of  the  cowpunchers  were 
filled.  Yet  the  type  remained  singularly  fixed.  The 
young  man  from  Iowa  or  New  York  or  Virginia  who 
went  on  the  range  to  learn  the  business,  taught  the 
hardy  men  who  made  his  predecessors  there  very  little 
of  the  ways  of  Iowa  or  New  York  or  Virginia.  It  was 
he  who  experienced  change.  It  was  as  though  the 
model  of  the  cowboy  had  been  cast  in  bronze,  in  a 
heroic  mould,  to  which  all  aspirants  were  compelled 
to  conform  in  line  and  detail.  The  environment  had 
produced  its  type.  The  cowboy  had  been  born. 
America  had  gained  another  citizen,  history  another 
character.  It  was  not  for  the  type  to  change,  but  for 
others  to  conform  to  it. 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        33 

He  who  sought  to  ride  by  the  side  of  this  new 
man,  this  American  cowboy,  needed  to  have  courage 
and  constitution.,  a  heart  and  a  stomach  not  easily 
daunted,  and  a  love  for  the  hard  ground  and  the 
open  sky.  There  were  many  who  were  fit  so  to  ride. 
Of  these  the  range  asked  no  questions.  If  there  had 
been  trouble  back  in  the  "  States,"  trouble  with  a 
man,  a  sweetheart,  or  a  creditor,  it  was  all  one,  for 
oblivion  was  the  portion  offered  by  the  hard  ground 
and  the  sky.  Let  us  not  ask  whence  the  cowboy  came, 
for  that  is  a  question  immaterial  and  impossible  of 
answer.  Be  sure,  he  came  from  among  those  who  had 
strong  within  them  that  savagery  and  love  of  freedom 
which  springs  so  swiftly  into  life  among  strong  natures 
when  offered  a  brief  exemption  from  the  slavery  of 
civilization.  The  range  claimed  and  held  its  own.  The 
days  of  the  range  were  the  last  ones  of  American  free 
life.  They  preceded  the  time  of  commerical  life,  that 
stage  of  civilization  when  all  men  must  settle  down 
to  wear,  patiently  or  impatiently,  the  yoke  that  is  im- 
posed by  the  artificial  compact  of  society. 

It  is  probable,  then,  that  we  should  see  small  differ- 
ence between  Jim,  the  foreman  of  the  T  Bar  ranch  in 
Wyoming  or  Montana,  and  the  Jim  who  was  foreman 
of  the  Bar  Y,  or  of  the  Star  D,  or  of  the  Circle  Arrow  in 
the  Southwest  country.  It  is  still  uncertain  where  Jim 
lived  before  he  came  on  the  ranch,  and  it  is  still  imma- 
terial, for  it  is  certain  that  he  is  a  good  cowman. 

In  appearance  Jim  is  a  man  of  medium  height,  with 
good  shoulders,  none  too  square,  but  broad  enough.  He 
is  thin  in  flank,  lean  and  muscular,  with  the  firm  flesh 
of  the  man  not  only  in  perfect  physical  health  but  in 
perfect  physical  training.  Life  in  the  saddle,  with  long 
hours  of  exercise  and  a  diet  of  plain  food,  has  left  not 
an  ounce  of  fat  to  prevent  the  free  play  of  the  firm 


34:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

muscles  one  above  the  other.  His  skin  is  darkened 
and  toughened  by  the  wind  and  sun  and  alkali.  His 
hair  is  not  worn  long,  as  persons  of  a  certain  class 
would  have  us  believe  was  the  correct  thing  for  scout 
or  Westerner  in  the  "  old  times."  Jim's  hair  is  hid 
under  his  big  hat,  but  very  likely  hangs  in  a  rough  mop 
down  from  under  his  hat  and  upon  his  forehead,  like  the 
forelock  of  a  pony. 

Jim's  eye  may  be  of  the  red  hazel  of  the  ready 
fighter,  or  the  gray  of  the  cold-nerved  man,  or  the 
blue  of  the  man  who  is  always  somewhere  about 
when  there  is  fun  or  trouble  afloat  in  whatever  cor- 
ner of  the  world.  It  is  hard  to  see  Jim's  eyes,  because 
the  bright  sun  causes  him  to  hold  them  well  covered 
with  the  lids,  with  a  half  squint  to  them.  His  mus- 
tache may  have  been  tawny  or  brown  or  nearly  black 
at  first,  but  now  it  is  sunburned  and  bleached  to  a 
yellow,  faded  hue.  Upon  his  feet  Jim  makes  a  very 
poor  figure.  He  is  slouchy,  awkward,  and  shambling 
in  his  gait,  for  his  feet,  in  the  vernacular  of  the  range, 
do  not  "  track,"  but  cross  each  other  weakly.  His 
legs  are  bowed,  with  the  curve  which  constant  horse- 
back riding  in  early  youth  always  gives.  His  toes  turn 
in  distinctly  as  he  walks.  He  does  not  stand  erect, 
but  stoops.  But  in  the  saddle  he  sits  erect,  and  every 
action  shows  strength,  every  movement  the  grace  of 
muscles  doing  their  work  with  unconscious  ease 
and  sureness.  The  world  can  produce  no  horseman 
more  masterly.  With  the  "  rope  "  he  can  catch  the 
running  steer  by  whichever  foot  you  shall  name.  He 
can  "  roll  a  gun  "  with  either  hand,  or  with  both  hands 
at  once.  He  has  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  the  steer,  and  knows  the  trade  to  the  last  detail.  He 
has  all  the  hardihood  and  courage  which  come  of  long 
familiarity  with  trouble,  hardship,  and  peril;  for  what 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        35 

is  called  courage  is  very  much  a  matter  of  association 
and  habit. 

With  his  employer  Jim  is  as  honest  and  faithful 
as  any  man  that  ever  breathed.  In  his  conversation 
he  is  picturesque  and  upon  occasion  volcanic  of  speech. 
In  his  ways  of  thought  he  is  simple,  in  his  correspond- 
ence brief.  It  was  perhaps  this  same  Jim,  foreman  of 
the  T  Bar,  who  wrote  to  the  Eastern  ranch  owner  the 
quarterly  report  which  constituted  for  him  the  most 
serious  labour  of  the  year,  and  which  is  said  to  have 
read  as  follows: 

"  Deer  sur,  we  have  brand  800  caves  this  roundup 
we  have  made  sum  hay  potatoes  is  a  fare  crop.  That 
Inglishman  yu  lef  in  charge  at  the  other  camp  got  to 

fresh  an  we  had  to  kill  the  son  of  a .     Nothing 

much  has  hapened  sence  yu  lef.    Yurs  truely,  Jim." 

It  was  possibly  Jim,  the  foreman,  who  licked  the 
young  cub  whom  everybody  called  "  Kid "  into  the 
shape  of  a  cowboy,  and  it  may  have  been  he  who  taught 
the  wealthy  cattle  owner  something  of  the  essentials 
of  the  business  as  they  have  come  down  in  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  range.  Grim,  taciturn,  hard-working,  faith- 
ful, it  was  this  cowboy  of  the  range  who  made  the  main- 
stay of  the  entire  cattle  industry.  Without  him  there 
could  never  have  been  any  cattle  industry.  He  was 
its  central  figure  and  its  reliance,  at  the  same  time  that 
he  was  its  creature  and  its  product. 

If  it  make  small  difference  who  the  cow  puncher 
was  or  whence  he  came,  it  will  make  little  difference, 
either,  at  what  exact  portion  of  the  vast  empire  of  the 
Northern  cattle  range  there  was  located  the  home  ranch 
of  the  T  Bar  outfit.  It  might  have  been  at  any  point 
within  a  circle  of  five  hundred  miles,  and  still  have  had 


36  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  same  general  characteristics.  Let  us  suppose  the 
ranch  building  to  be  located  upon  the  upper  portion 
of  some  one  of  the  great  rivers  of  the  Yellowstone 
system,  in  that  region  so  long  the  range  of  the  buffalo 
and  the 'home  of  the  red  ranchers  who  never  branded 
their  cattle.  This  river  debouches  from  the  great  and 
snowy  mountains  which  are  plainly  visible  beyond  the 
foothills  of  the  chain.  The  soil  of  the  river  valley, 
the  detritus  of  ages  carried  down  and  spread  out  by 
the  waters,  is  deep  and  rich.  The  river,  subject  as 
are  all  the  streams  of  the  region  to  sudden  freshets 
or  to  seasons  of  low  water,  is  well  fed  and  regulated  in 
its  upper  waters  by  the  deep  snows  which  each  season 
fall  upon  the  mountains  and  which  hardly  melt  entirely 
away  throughout  the  year.  Into  this  larger  stream  flow 
other  streams  at  intervals,  these  heading  back  into  the 
high  grounds  of  the  plains.  Along  the  stream  in  this 
upper  valley  the  red  willows  grow  densely.  They  form 
a  heavy  bank  of  shelter  at  the  arm  of  the  river  where 
the  ranch  house  is  built.  Below  this  point  the  valley 
spreads  out  into  a  wide  natural  meadow,  and  here  the 
water  has  been  led  out  in  an  irrigating  ditch,  so  that  a 
considerable  extent  of  hay  land  has  been  established. 
All  that  this  soil  needs  is  water  to  make  it  fruitful 
as  any  in  the  world.  The  ranch  owner  has  realized  this, 
and  at  times  a  tiny,  scraggy  garden  gives  rich  reward 
for  all  the  care  bestowed  upon  it,  though  here,  as  all 
over  the  cow  country,  the  tin  can  is  the  main  dooryard 
decoration.  Wheat,  oats,  and  corn  could  be  raised 
here  also,  but  the  ranch  man  hopes  that  fact  will  be 
long  in  its  discovery  by  others.  His  own  concern  is 
the  raising  of  cattle. 

Over  all  the  high  plains  back  from  the  river  val- 
ley the  sage  brush  and  the  bunch  grass  grow,  as  they 
do  all  over  the  "arid  belt,"  and  give  no  promise  of 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        37 

the  vegetation  that  needs  water  at  its  roots.  Not 
far  from  the  ranch  there  may  be  small  green  valleys, 
six  or  seven  thousand  feet  above  sea  level,  each  with 
ten  or  twenty  miles  of  grazing  ground,  where  the 
grass  grows  tall  and  green  as  it  does  in  the  "  States  "  ; 
but  contrary  to  what  the  tenderfoot  would  expect,  the 
cattle  do  not  crowd  in  to  feed  upon  this  luxuriant  and 
fresh-looking  grass,  but  range  far  out  upon  the  deso- 
late bunch  grass  country  where,  to  the  eye  of  the  novice, 
there  is  no  food  at  all  for  them.  The  big  flies  go  with 
the  tall  grass,  and  in  these  green  valleys  neither  cow, 
horse,  nor  human  being  can  endure  their  vicious  and 
continuous  assaults.  The  green  grass  is  forsaken  utter- 
ly. Early  teamsters  who  crossed  the  plains,  freighting 
to  Denver  in  the  days  before  the  railroads,  often  struck 
such  valleys  where  the  greenhead  flies  made  life  for 
their  horses  or  oxen  almost  unbearable.  The  valley 
of  the  Eawhide,  in  Nebraska,  was  such  a  spot.  Here 
the  flies  were  so  bad  that  the  horses  had  to  be  kept  in 
darkened  barns  all  day,  and  at  night  the  mosquitoes 
swarmed  upon  the  unprotected  horses  of  the  freighters 
in  such  numbers  that  the  poor  groaning  creatures  could 
not  rest  and  were  driven  nearly  frantic. 

Below  our  ranch  house  the  river  marches  on,  broad- 
ening out  and  flowing  more  and  more  gently,  until  it 
in  turn  passes  into  some  other  affluent  of  the  Yellow- 
stone-Missouri system.  At  the  point  where  the  ranch 
house  is  located,  or  a  little  way  above  it,  the  waters  have 
not  yet  lost  the  colour  they  bore  in  the  mountains,  a 
bright,  bluish  green.  There  are  fine  mountain  trout 
within  a  day's  journey  that  the  cook  sometimes  catches 
when  he  is  not  too  lazy  to  go  out  after  them.  But 
soon  after  leaving  this  elevation,  and  reaching  the 
red  soil  of  the  lower  plains,  the  river  becomes  tinged 
and  discoloured,  then  red,  roily,  perhaps  full  of  quick- 
4 


38  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

sands,  and  no  longer  beautiful  to  behold.  Here  the 
cottonwoods,  those  worthless  yet  indispensable  trees 
of  the  plains,  troop  in  along  the  water  and  spread 
out  their  brittle,  crooked  arms.  They  give  a  little 
shade,  and  serve  for  a  sort  of  fuel.  In  the  old  freight- 
ing days  the  teamster  of  the  plains  always  carried 
an  extra  axle  and  a  spare  wheel  or  two  against  acci- 
dent on  his  long  journeys,  but  it  is  related  of  one 
improvident  wagoner  that  he  at  one  time  found  himself 
with  a  broken  axletree  and  no  timber  near  except  some 
cottonwoods.  He  tried  a  half  dozen  times  to  make  an 
axle  of  the  ill-grained  soft  wood,  but  finally  gave  it  up, 
and  history  states  that  he  finally  turned  out  his  team 
there,  and  stopped  and  located  a  farm,  because  he  could 
not  get  away  from  the  country. 

In  times  past  these  cottonwoods  along  our  river 
served  another  purpose.  Here,  in  a  sheltered  valley, 
where  the  willows  make  a  wide  thicket  extending  back 
over  the  bottoms  for  half  a  mile  or  more,  there  are  cotton- 
woods  which  bear  strange  burdens,  long  and  shapeless 
bundles,  wrapped  in  hides  or  rags.  It  is  the  burial 
place  of  the  red  men,  with  whom  the  cowpuncher  is  at 
war.  For  these  rude  graveyards  the  irreverent  cow- 
puncher  has  no  respect.  He  tears  down  the  bundles 
and  kicks  them  apart,  hunting  for  beads  and  finger 
bones.  Around  the  cow  camp  there  is  knocking  about 
the  skull  of  an  Indian,  a  round  hole  in  the  temple. 
This  came  from  the  sandhills,  where  it  had  never  been 
accorded  even  so  rude  a  burial  as  the  one  described. 
Once  the  Cheyennes  swooped  down  and  the  cowmen 
met  them.  Thirteen  of  the  Cheyennes  did  not  go 
back  when  the  war  party  retreated  to  the  villages  to  toll 
their  people  of  the  new  fighting  men  who  had  come 
into  the  country. 

The  T  Bar  cattle  roam  over  a  million  acres  or  so 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        39 

of  land,  of  which  the  rancher  perhaps  owns  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  acres.  Of  course,  at  this  date,  no  at- 
tempt is  made  at  fencing  the  range,  though  a  few 
rough  stops  of  logs  or  trees  may  keep  the  cattle  back 
from  some  creek  valleys  or  canons  where  it  is  not  de- 
sired that  they  should  go.  It  is  still  "  free  grass  "  on 
the  range.  The  cattle  are  held  on  a  certain  part  of  the 
country,  and  prevented  from  drifting  off  to  the  range 
of  another  outfit  by  "  outriding."  Each  day  the  cow- 
punchers  "  ride  sign  "  around  the  edge  of  the  agreed 
territory,  turning  back  or  looking  up  any  cattle  that 
seem  to  be  wandering  from  their  proper  range.  At 
points  some  miles  away  from  the  home  ranch,  perhaps 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles  or  more,  there  are  other  and  less 
pretentious  quarters  built  for  the  outriders.  For  in- 
stance, Red,  one  of  the  hands,  starts  out  in  the  morn- 
ing and  rides  the  eastern  edge  of  the  range  to  the 
Willow  Spring  cabin,  where  he  meets  Curly,  who  came 
down  from  above  on  the  same  side.  They  stop  together 
over  night  at  the  cabin,  if  they  are  near  it  when  dark 
comes,  and  in  the  morning  separate  and  return  the 
way  they  came.  Or  perhaps  both  may  live  at  this  camp 
most  of  the  time.  The  range  riders  are  continual  sen- 
tinels and  pickets,  besides  being  courier,  fighting  force, 
and  commander,  each  for  himself. 

Our  ranch  house  stands  upon  a  sightly  spot,  here 
in  the  bend  of  the  blue  river.  This  was  a  favourite 
camping  place  for  hunters  and  trappers  in  the  days 
before  the  beaver  were  gone.  The  old  camps  are 
gone  now,  and  in  their  place  stands  the  long  and 
substantial  cabin  which  makes  the  home  ranch  house. 
This  is  a  building  better  than  those  seen  on  the  south- 
ern range,  for  here  the  climate,  though  very  hot  in  sum- 
mer, is  exceedingly  cold  in  winter,  and  more  care  needs 
to  be  taken  with  the  habitation.  The  house  is  built  of 


40  THE  STORY  OP  THE  COWBOY. 

logs,  the  logs  perhaps  hewn  and  squared.  The  roof 
is  made  of  logs,  boughs,  hay,  and  dirt,  or  if  very 
modern  it  may  be  covered  with  riven  "  shakes "  or 
shingles,  with  perhaps  an  attempt  made  at  a  rude 
porch  or  veranda,  this  taking  the  place  in  some  extent 
of  the  midway  hall  of  other  ranches  we  have  seen.  The 
doors  and  windows  are  well  fitted,  for  the  intense  cold 
of  winter  will  tap  sharply  every  open  joint.  There 
is  a  huge  fireplace,  and  moreover  a  big  "  cannon  "  stove. 
Kough  bunks  line  the  walls,  as  in  the  general  scheme 
of  the  Western  ranch  house,  and  on  these  are  beds  of 
heavy  blankets,  underlaid  with  robes  and  skins.  The 
matchless  robe  of  the  buffalo  at  one  time  played  an  im- 
portant part  in  Northern  ranch  economy.  Upon  the 
floors  are  the  skins  of  elk  and  deer,  of  the  mountain  lion, 
and  of  the  bear.  The  ranchman  is  almost  of  necessity 
a  hunter,  and  this  range  lies  in  the  heart  of  one  of  the 
great  game  regions  of  the  land.  Upon  the  walls  of 
the  room  there  hang  upon  long  wooden  pegs  some  of 
the  less  used  saddles,  bridles,  "  chaps,"  ropes,  and  other 
gear  of  the  men.  The  cow  puncher  may  throw  his 
hat  upon  the  floor,  but  is  very  apt  to  hang  up  his  spur. 
Or  he  may  come  in  tired  from  a  long  ride,  and  rolling 
himself  up  in  his  blankets  in  the  cocoon  style  of  the 
Westerner,  fall  asleep  with  his  clothes  on,  boots,  spurs, 
and  all.  His  life  is  one  of  camps  and  marches.  Of  a 
regular  home  life  or  settled  habits  he  knows  nothing. 
Civilization  is  still  far  off.  He  sees  the  railroad  per- 
haps twice  a  year.  Then  he  sleeps  upon  a  mattress 
and  has  a  "  reg'lar  goose-har  piller,"  of  which  he  tells 
his  companions  when  lie  comes  back  to  the  ranch. 
He  sleeps  as  well  as  he  eats  or  rides.  The  fresh  air  of 
the  mountains  has  blown  every  mnlaisc  from  his  sys- 
tem. He  rises  in  the  morning  with  his  "  fists  full  of 
strength,"  exulting  in  the  sheer  animal  vigour  of  per- 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        41 

feet  health,  the  greatest  blessing  that  can  come  to  any 
man.    The  cowpuncher  is  a  survival. 

The  harsh  Northern  country,  stem  as  it  is  and 
unfriendly  of  aspect,  is  none  the  less  in  some  of  its 
phases  kindly  and  beautiful.  In  the  spring  the  wind 
blows  soft,  and  many  small  flowers  come  out  from  under 
the  snow.  The  willow  buds  swell  and  burst.  The  trout 
run,  and  the  hordes  of  grouse  in  the  willow  thickets 
break  up  their  packs  and  spread  out  over  the  country. 
The  wild  geese  cross  northward,  bound  still  farther  on 
toward  the  land  of  cold.  Small  birds  twitter  and  flit 
about  the  ranch  house,  and  little  squirrels  come,  and  the 
mountain  rats  appear  from  their  nests.  The  wind 
blows  steadily,  but  its  bravado  is  understood  and  not 
dreaded.  The  spring  floods  of  snow  water  boil  down  all 
the  water  ways,  and  presently  the  spring  rains  come  and 
drench  out  all  the  frosts  that  lie  in  the  ground.  Then 
the  prairies  show  a  carpet  of  flowers  dotting  in  their 
brief  beauty  the  strips  of  green  so  soon  to  lose  their 
colour.  Deeper  dashes  of  green  spread  out  along  the  wet 
grounds  bordering  the  smaller  streams.  The  sage- 
brush blossoms  and  the  trees  of  the  little  parks  put 
out  new  buds  and  begin  again  the  cycle  of  unfailing 
hope.  Yet  spring  is  not  greeted  here  as  a  seedtime. 
No  ploughs  cut  the  soil  of  these  iron  plains.  No 
wagon  wheel  marks  'the  hard  surface  for  the  notice  of 
the  range  rider  going  upon  his  long  rounds.  No  fig- 
ures of  men  setting  forth  to  fields,  of  horses  labouring 
at  drill  or  harrow,  meet  his  gaze  fixed  upon  the  far 
horizon.  Just  seen  upon  some  distant  ridge  there  may 
be  the  outline  of  a  figure,  but  if  so,  it  is  that  of  an- 
other rider  like  himself,  and  bound  upon  a  similar  er- 
rand. Or  it  may  be  the  shape  of  an  Indian  rider,  per- 
haps several  of  them,  off  their  reservation  with  or 
without  permission,  and  hurrying  under  whip  across 


£2  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  country  on  some  forbidden  hunt  or  distant  visit. 
The  Indian  plies  his  whip  and  looks  straight  ahead, 
but  he  has  seen  the  cowboy.  The  cowboy  sees  him 
too,  and  smiles  contemptuously.  He  dreams  not  of 
the  day  when  he,  too,  shall  be  a  flitting  figure  disap- 
pearing across  the  range. 

In  the  spring  the  cattle  straggle  out  from  the 
warmer  and  more  sheltered  portions  of  the  range  where 
they  have  been  huddled  during  the  more  biting  times 
of  winter.  They  feed  with  eagerness  and  unceasing 
industry  upon  the  fresh-growing  grasses.  The  little 
calves  begin  to  totter  along  awkwardly  by  the  side  of 
their  gaunt  mothers,  whose  hips  and  ribs  project 
prominently  in  sign  of  the  long  season  of  cold  and 
scarcity  with  which  they  have  been  at  war.  Coyotes 
sneak  along  the  hillsides  at  the  edges  of  the  herds,  in 
the  morning  at  sunrise  sometimes  sitting  upon  the  tops 
of  the  high  ridges  and  joining  in  a  keen  tremulous 
chorus,  one  of  the  familiar  sounds  of  the  range.  At 
times  a  circle  of  the  great  gray  buffalo  wolves — pests 
of  the  cattle  range — close  in  about  a  mother  and  her 
calf,  lying  down,  bounding  about,  playing  and  grin- 
ning. The  feeble  cow  fights  as  she  can,  perhaps  get- 
ting to  the  circle  where  others  stand  and  fight.  The 
snarling  pack  will  in  time  pull  down  their  prey.  The 
rider  of  the  T  Bar  range  reports  many  calves  and 
heifers  killed  by  wolves.  It  is  one  of  the  factors  of 
loss  to  be  figured  upon  regularly.  He  notes  also 
roughly  as  he  makes  his  early  trips  over  the  range  the 
numbers  of  cattle  that  "  did  not  winter."  At  these 
red  or  tawny  blotches  which  lie  about  over  the  land- 
scape the  coyotes  are  feeding,  then  the  foxes  and 
swifts.  Perhaps  by  some  carcass  the  cowboy  notes  the 
long  footmark  of  the  grizzly  bear,  which  has  awakened 
from  its  sleep  in  the  hills  and  begun  a  long  series  of 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        43 

marches  in  search  of  food,  always  scarce  for  it  in  the 
early  spring  before  the  crickets  and  mice  begin  to 
move  and  before  the  berries  ripen.  The  bear  has  torn 
apart  with  his  rugged  strength  the  ribs  of  the  carcass 
and  battened  his  iill  upon  the  carrion.  Eavens  cross 
from  side  to  side.  Life  and  death  are  in  evidence  to- 
gether upon  the  range  in  spring.  These  lean  cattle, 
their  rough  hair  blowing  up  in  the  wind,  are  the  sur- 
vivals. The  range  is  no  place  for  weaklings.  The 
cowpuncher,  who  is  no  weakling,  rides  along  over  the 
range,  guessing  at  the  proportion  of  survival  in  the 
herd,  estimating  how  many  calves  the  outfit  will  brand 
at  the  round-up  soon  to  begin,  figuring  on  how  many 
strange  cattle  have  drifted  in  on  this  part  of  the  range 
during  the  last  storms  of  the  winter.  His  eye  catches 
with  trained  precision  the  brand  of  each  animal  he 
sees.  He  is  observant  of  every  detail  connected  with 
his  calling  as  he  rides  along,  unconscious  of  his  horse, 
his  arm  high  and  loose,  his  legs  straight  to  the  big 
stirrups,  his  body  from  the  hips  up  supple  and  swing- 
ing, his  eye  ranging  over  the  wide  expanse  of  plain 
and  coulee,  butte  and  valley  that  lies  before  him.  This 
wide  book  is  his,  and  he  knows  it  well.  The  little  larks 
twitter  and  flit  from  in  front  of  him  low  along  the 
ground  as  the  pony  trots  ahead,  and  the  prairie  dogs 
chatter  from  their  mounds.  If  the  horse  makes  a  shy- 
ing bound  from  some  lazy  rattlesnake  that  has  come 
out  from  winter  quarters  to  stretch  awhile  in  the  sun, 
the  thighs  of  the  rider  tighten,  and  the  ready  oath 
leaps  to  his  lip  as  he  strikes  the  spur  to  the  horse's 
flank  and  asks  it,  in  the  picturesque  language  of  the 
plains,  what  are  its  intentions  as  connected  with  a 
future  life. 

And  then  comes  on  the  summer  time,  with  its  swift 
and  withering  heat.     The  range  shrivels  and  sears. 


44  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

The  streams  dwindle  and  shrink.  The  flowers  are  cut 
down  by  the  torrid  winds.  The  sage  brush  is  gray  and 
dismal.  The  grass  is  apparently  burned  to  tinder.  The 
edges  of  the  water  holes  are  trampled  and  made  miry 
by  the  hoofs  of  the  cattle  which  press  in  to  water. 
Out  in  the  hot  air  the  white  alkali  flats  glimmer  and 
shift  in  the  distance.  Above  them  stalk  the  strange 
figures  of  the  mirage,  cousins  of  the  Fata  Morgana, 
of  the  southern  range.  In  this  weird  mirage  the  fig- 
ures of  the  cattle  appear  large  as  houses,  the  mounted 
man  tall  as  a  church  spire.  The  surface  of  the  earth 
waves  and  trembles  and  throbs  in  the  heat  like  an 
unsteady  sea.  The  sun  blisters  the  skin  of  any  but 
the  native,  and  the  lips  of  the  tenderfoot  blacken  and 
shrivel  and  crack  open  in  the  white  dust  that  arises. 
In  the  soft  mud  which  lies  between  the  shore  and  the 
water  at  the  watering  places  lie  the  figures  of  cattle 
which  have  perished  there,  but  in  this  hot  dry  air  they 
dry  up  like  mummies,  the  skin  tightening  in  parch- 
ment over  their  bones.  Though  the  nights  are  cold, 
the  day  flames  up  into  sudden  heat.  If  there  be  a  rain, 
it  is  a  tempest,  a  torrent,  a  cloud  burst  which  makes 
raging  floods  out  of  dried-up  river  beds,  and  turns 
the  alkali  flats  into  seas  of  slimy,  greasy  mud.  Through 
it  all,  over  it  all,  the  cowpuncher  rides,  philosophical 
and  unfretted.  With  him  it  is  unprofessional  to  com- 
plain. 

In  turn  comes  autumn,  when  the  winds  are  keener. 
The  cattle  are  sleek  and  fat  now,  though  by  this  time 
the  fattest  have  after  the  beef  round-up  found  their 
mission  in  the  far-off  markets.  Now  the  leaves  of  the 
quaking  asp  in  the  little  mountain  valley,  which  wore 
light  green  in  spring,  dark  green  in  summer,  begin  to 
pale  into  a  faded  yellow.  The  wild  deer  are  running 
in  the  foothills,  and  over  the  plains  sweep  in  ghostly 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.       45 

flight  the  bands  of  the  antelope.  The  bears  have  gone 
up  higher  into  the  table-lands  to  seek  their  food  and 
look  about  for  a  sleeping  place.  The  wild  geese  are 
again  honking  in  the  air,  this  time  going  toward  the 
south.  The  mallards  swim  in  the  little  eddies  of  the 
creeks,  not  to  leave  them  till  later  in  the  winter  when 
the  ice  closes  up  the  water.  The  smaller  birds  seek 
warmer  lands,  except  the  mountain  jays,  the  camp 
birds,  and  the  ravens,  which  seem  busy  as  with  some 
burdening  thought  of  winter.  The  rousing  whistle 
of  the  challenging  elk  is  heard  by  the  cowboy  whose 
duties  take  him  up  into  the  hills.  The  pause  of  Nature 
gathering  her  energies  for  the  continuance  of  the  war 
of  life  is  visible  and  audible  all  about.  The  air  is 
eager  and  stimulating.  In  the  morning  the  cow- 
punchers  race  their  plunging  ponies  as  they  start  out 
from  the  ranch,  and  give  vent  in  sheer  exuberance  to 
the  shrill,  wolf-keyed  yell  which  from  one  end  of  the 
range  to  the  other  is  their  fraternal  call. 

.  The  snows  whitened  long  ago  the  tops  of  the  moun- 
tains in  the  range.  The  foothills  are  white  with  snow 
every  morning  now,  and  the  wind  blows  cold  even 
down  in  the  little  valley  where  the  willows  break  its 
force.  Winter  is  coming.  The  wild  deer  press  lower 
down  from  the  mountains.  The  big  bear  long  ago 
went  to  sleep  up  in  the  hills.  With  a  rush  and  a  whirl 
some  night  the  winter  breaks.  In  the  morning  the 
men  look  out  from  the  cabin  door  and  can  see  but  a 
few  feet  into  the  blinding,  whirling  mass  of  falling 
snow.  This  is  not  the  blizzard  of  midwinter,  but  the 
first  soft  falling  of  the  season.  Presently  the  storm 
ceases,  the  sun  shining  forth  brilliantly  as  though  to 
repent.  The  earth  is  a  blinding  mystery  of  white. 
The  river  has  shrunken  in  its  barriers  of  ice,  and  over 
the  edges  of  the  ice  hang  heavy  masses  of  snow.  The 


46  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

willows  are  heavy  with  snow,  and  the  grouse  that 
huddle  in  packs  among  them  are  helpless  and  apa- 
thetic. 

Then  the  early  snow  settles  and  hardens.,  and  is 
added  to  hy  other  snows.  The  mallards  in  the  little 
spring  creek  have  but  a  narrow  swimming  place  now 
left  to  them.  Along  the  bank  of  the  river  appears  the 
curious  drag  of  a  travelling  otter,  driven  down  by  the 
too  solid  closing  of  the  stream  above.  The  great 
round  track  of  the  mountain  lion  has  been  seen  at  one 
or  two  places  on  the  range,  and  that  of  the  big  gray 
wolf,  the  latter  as  large  as  the  hoof  mark  of  a  horse. 
The  cowpuncher  at  one  of  the  out  camps  who  steps 
to  the  door  at  midnight  and  looks  out  over  the  white 
plain,  when  the  moon  is  cold  and  bright  and  the  stars 
very  large  and  beautiful,  hears  wafted  upon  the  air  the 
long,  dreary,  sobbing  wail  of  the  gray  wolf,  sweeping 
in  its  tireless  gallop  perhaps  forty  miles  a  night  across 
the  range  in  search  of  food.  He  will  find  food. 

And  now  midwinter  comes.  The  cold  becomes  in- 
tense. Horse  and  cow  have  now  put  on  their  longest 
coat  of  hair,  all  too  thin  to  turn  the  edge  of  the  icy 
air.  Yet  the  wind  is  their  friend.  It  sweeps  constantly 
for  them,  moaning  that  it  can  do  no  better,  the  tops  of 
the  hills  where  the  blessed  bunch  grass  lies  curled  and 
cured  for  food.  It  sweeps  at  the  hillsides,  too,  and 
makes  the  snow  so  thin  that  the  horses  can  easily  paw 
it  away  and  get  down  to  the  grass,  and  the  cattle  find 
at  least  a  little  picking.  From  the  hills  the  snow  is 
blown  away  in  masses  that  fill  the  ravines  and  gullies 
in  deep  drifts.  It  packs  against  the  cut  banks  so  hard 
that  the  cattle  may  cross  upon  it.  The  hand  of  the 
winter  is  heavy.  It  is  appalling  to  the  stranger  in  its 
relentless  grasp  at  the  throat  of  life.  The  iron  range  is 
striving  bitterly  with  all  its  might  to  hold  its  own,  to 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        47 

drive  away  these  invaders  who  have  intruded  here. 
It  is  hopeless.  These  men  are  the  creatures  for  the 
place  and  hour.  They  survive. 

And  the  cattle.  Ah!  the  cattle.  They  did  not 
choose  of  their  own  volition  this  Northern  country  of 
cold  and  ice.  They  were  driven  here  from  a  very  dif- 
ferent clime.  Yet  they  retain  the  common  desire  of 
animate  things,  and  seek  to  prevail  over  their  sur- 
roundings. Gradually  the  creature  shall  adapt  itself 
to  the  surroundings  or  perish.  The  cattle  feed  on  the 
swept  hillsides,  losing  flesh,  but  living.  A  thaw  fol- 
lowed by  a  freeze  is  the  worst  thing  that  can  befall 
them,  for  then  the  grass  is  sealed  away  from  them, 
and  upon  their  backs  is  formed  a  cake  of  ice,  a  blanket 
of  cold  continually  freezing  their  very  vitals  and  op- 
pressing them  with  a  chill  which  it  is  useless  to  attempt 
to  escape.  The  cattle  then  soon  cease  in  their  struggle 
for  life.  They  huddle  together  in  little  ragged  groups 
in  the  lee  of  such  shelter  as  they  can  find,  their  rough 
coats  upright  and  staring.  They  no  longer  attempt  to 
feed.  One  by  one  they  lie  down. 

The  Northern  cattle  range  is  not  a  hay  country, 
and  the  early  cowman  counted  naught  on  hay.  Yet 
sometimes  a  little  hay  was  made,  and,  in  the  case  of  a 
prolonged  cold  season  such  as  that  described,  an  at- 
tempt was  made  to  feed  the  cattle.  Of  course,  the 
thousands  of  the  herds  can  not  be  fed,  but  some  of  the 
weaker  of  the  cattle  are  rounded  up  and  a  rough  effort 
is  made  at  giving  them  a  little  care.  The  hay  is  thrown 
off  the  wagons  to  them  in  the  corrals  as  they  stand 
where  they  were  driven,  humped  up,  shivering  in  mor- 
tal rigours,  many  of  them  frozen.  At  times  their 
legs,  frozen  to  the  bone,  are  too  stiff  to  have  feeling 
or  to  be  capable  of  control.  The  animals  stumble 
or  fall  or  are  jostled  over,  and  are  too  feeble  ever 


48  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

to  rise.    The  croak  of  the  raven  is  the  requiem  of  the 
range. 

It  is  winter  on  the  northern  range,  but  though  it 
be  winter  the  work  of  the  cowboy  is  not  yet  done.  At 
times  he  must  ride  the  range,  in  a  partial  way  at  least,  to 
keep  track  of  the  cattle,  to  -see  whether  any  are  back  in 
box  canons  from  which  they  should  be  driven,  to  see 
whether  any  are  "  drifting."  Knowing  the  danger  of 
a  sudden  storm  upon  such  a  ride,  he  goes  well  prepared 
for  the  work.  Many  men  have  gone  out  upon  the 
range  in  winter  who  never  came  back  again  to  the 
cabin.  Their  rough  companions  at  the  ranch  do  not 
say  much  if  the  cowpuncher  does  not  return  from  out 
the  sudden  raging  storm  that  may  set  in  without  an 
hour's  warning.  Each  man  would  risk  his  own  life 
to  save  that  of  his  fellow,  but  each  man  knows  how 
futile  is  the  thought  of  help.  The  whole  atmosphere 
is  a  whirling,  seething,  cutting  drift  of  icy  white,  in 
which  the  breath  is  drawn  but  in  gasps,  and  that  only 
with  face  down  wind.  The  heaviest  of  clothing  does 
not  suffice,  and  not  even  the  buffalo  coat  can  stop  the 
icy  chill  that  thickens  the  blood  into  sluggishness 
and  makes  drowsy  every  vital  energy.  The  snow  covers 
the  trail  of  the  wanderer,  as  it  winds  his  burial  sheet 
about  him  and  hides  him  from  hope  even  before  death 
has  come  to  stop  his  last  feeble,  insentient  efforts  to 
struggle  on.  But  all  the  men  know  which  way  to  look 
— down  wind  somewhere,  for  it  could  have  been  in 
no  other  direction.  He  may  be  lying  a  long,  shape- 
less blot  on  the  earth,  his  clinched  hands  over  his 
head  to  shut  out  the  snow  and  the  thought  of  death, 
in  some  little  coulee  miles  and  miles  from  where  the 
blizzard  caught  him.  There  have  been  seen  rider- 
less horses  on  the  range,  with  parts  of  saddle  still 
hanging  to  them.  The  round-up  may  perhaps  liiul 


THE  RANCH  IN  THE  NORTH.        49 

the  place  where  the  cowpuncher  is  sleeping  through 
many  sleeps. 

But  in  winter  the  work  of  the  cowman  is  much 
less.  He  has  time  to  sit  and  spin  a  yarn  and  smoke 
a  pipe  indoors  even  in  the  daytime,  and  at  night  he 
adds  disfigurement  to  the  single  deck  of  cards.  In 
the  ranch  house  it  is  warm  no  matter  what  the  snows 
and  winds  are  doing.  Perhaps  the  employer  of  these 
men  does  not  live  upon  the  ranch;  indeed,  it  is  most 
unlikely  that  he  is  spending  the  winter  there.  Per- 
haps back  in  some  city  in  the  "  States "  the  owner 
may  be  sitting  in  his  comfortable  home,  possibly  plan- 
ning about  his  trip  out  to  the  ranch  for  the  spring 
round-up.  The  owner  may  be  rich,  but  he  may  be 
ill,  and  he  may  not  be  entirely  happy  here  in  his  East- 
ern home.  He  may  know  the  troubles  incident  to  life 
in  the  complex  fabric  of  highly  organized  society.  In 
his  heart  he  may  long  for  that  other  fireside,  the  roar- 
ing fireplace  in  the  house  of  the  T  Bar  ranch.  He 
can  see  the  cowboys  in  their  shirt  sleeves  sitting  about 
the  fire  smoking  after  their  evening  meal,  their  knees 
in  their  hands  or  their  elbows  resting  on  their  knees, 
their  hair  hanging  down  tangled.  He  can  see  the 
big  shadows  the  fire  is  making  on  the  rude  tapestried 
wall  of  the  T  Bar  house.  He  envies  those  wiry  fellows 
who  loll  or  sit  about  the  fire. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


IN  the  cowboy  country  the  fashions  of  apparel  do 
not  change.  The  fashion  plates  of  our  own  history 
show  the  extremes  of  customs  based  largely  upon  folly 
or  caprice,  or  the  plots  of  tradespeople.  The  cowboy 
has  been  above  such  change.  He  is  clad  to-day  as  he 
was  when  he  first  appeared  upon  the  plains.  His  char- 
acter has  been  strong  enough  to  be  above  prettinesses 
and  uselessnesses.  His  weapons  and  his  dress  show 
none  of  the  idle  ornamentation  bestowed  by  those  peo- 
ples who  would  rather  carve  and  embroider  than  march 
and  fight.  The  costume  of  the  cowboy  is  permanent 
because  it  is  harmonious  with  its  surroundings.  It  is 
correct  because  it  is  appropriate.  It  will  remain  as  it 
is  so  long  as  the  cowboy  himself  remains  what  he  has 
been  and  still  is — a  strong  character,  a  self -poised  in- 
dividual, leaning  on  no  other  soul.  We  call  his  cos- 
tume picturesque,  but  that  is  because  it  takes  us 
into  places  to  which  we  are  unaccustomed.  We  call 
the  absurdities  of  many  European  natives  aJso  pic- 
turesque, with  their  starched  and  frilled  appendages, 
which  can  be  of  no  possible  use  or  advantage  in  any 
human  garb.  But  when  we  come  to  note  closely  the 
costume  of  the  cowboy,  we  shall  find  that  it  has  been 
planned  upon  lines  of  such  stern  utility  as  to  leave 
us  no  possible  thing  which  we  may  call  dispensable. 

50 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  51 

By  the  costume  we  may  tell  the  man.  We  can  not  fail 
to  recognise  a  nature  vigorous  far  beyond  those  weak 
degenerates  who  study  constantly  upon  changes  in 
their  own  bedeckings. 

The  coat,  trousers,  and  waistcoat  of  the  cowboy  are 
of  the  rough  sort  commonly  obtained  at  the  rude  stores 
of  the  frontier.  They  are,  of  course,  ready  made,  and 
of  course  they  do  not  fit  in  the  city  acceptation  of  the 
term.  They  are  sure  to  be  of  wool,  and  they  are  sure 
to  be  large  and  roomy  enough.  It  is  one  of  the  odd 
things  of  the  Southern  country  that  the  men  largely 
affect  black  or  dark-coloured  clothing.  The  men  of 
the  Southern  cities  to-day  nearly  all  wear  black  cloth- 
ing as  their  business  dress,  and  it  is  rarely  that  one 
sees  anything  but  a  black  hat,  though  that  would  seem 
to  be  precisely  the  sort  of  wear  most  illy  adapted  to 
a  land  of  blazing  sun.  The  early  cowboy  ideas  of  per- 
fect dress  reverted  somewhat  to  this  predilection  for 
dark  clothing.  In  more  recent  times  the  mixed  goods 
and  lighter  colours,  which  one  would  naturally  con- 
sider far  more  sensible  for  such  wear,  have  come  into 
wider  use,  but  this  is  mainly  because  the  storekeepers 
of  the  frontier  have  had  such  goods  for  sale. 

The  typical  cowboy  costume  can  hardly  be  said  to 
contain  a  coat  and  waistcoat.  The  heavy  woollen 
shirt,  loose  and  open  at  the  neck,  is  the  common  wear 
at  all  seasons  of  the  year  excepting  winter,  and  one  has 
often  seen  cowboys  in  the  winter  time  engaged  in  work 
about  the  yard  or  corral  of  the  ranch  wearing  no  cover 
for  the  upper  part  of  the  body  excepting  one  or  more 
of  these  heavy  shirts.  If  the  cowboy  wears  a  coat,  lie 
will  wear  it  open  and  loose  as  much  as  possible.  If  he 
wears  a  vest,  you  will  see  him  wear  it  slouchily,  hang- 
ing open  or  partly  unbuttoned  most  of  the  time.  There 
is  reason  in  this  slouchy  Western  habit.  The  cowboy 


52  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

will  tell  you  that  your  vest  closely  buttoned  about  the 
body  will  cause  you  to  perspire,  so  that  you  will  quickly 
chill  upon  ceasing  your  exercise.  His  own  waistcoat, 
loose  and  open,  admits  the  air  freely,  so  that  the  per- 
spiration evaporates  as  rapidly  as  it  forms.  If  the  wind 
be  blowing  keenly  when  he  dismounts  to  sit  down 
upon  the  ground  for  dinner,  he  buttons  up  his  waist- 
coat and  is  warm.  If  it  be  very  cold,  he  buttons  also 
his  coat.  Meantime  you,  who  have  followed  the  cus- 
toms of  the  "  States "  in  your  wearing  apparel,  will 
be  needing  two  overcoats  to  keep  you  warm.  A  tight 
coat,  a  "  biled  shirt,"  or  a  buttoned  waistcoat  are  things 
not  recognised  in  Cowboyland. 

When  we  come  to  the  boots  of  the  cowboy  we  shall 
find  apparent  foundation  for  the  charge  of  inutility. 
Very  curious  boots  indeed  they  are,  and  it  is  an  easy 
wager  that  one  would  be  unable  to  buy  a  pair  of  them 
in  the  length  and  breadth  of  most  large  Eastern  cities 
to-day.  Of  fine  leather,  with  light,  narrow  soles,  ex- 
tremely small  and  high  heels,  'and  fitting  so  tightly  as 
to  bind  the  foot  and  cramp  the  toes  in  a  most  vice- 
like  grasp,  surely  a  more  irrational  foot  covering  never 
was  invented.  Yet  the  cowboy  wears  this  sort  of  boot, 
and  has  worn  it  for  a  generation.  His  ideas  of  "  style  " 
oblige  him  to  cling  to  these  peculiar  boots,  and  to  be 
particular  in  the  make  of  these  as  well  as  in  the  fabric 
of  his  hats  and  gloves.  For  the  quality  of  his  clothing 
he  cares  nothing  whatever.  Yet  these  tight,  peaked, 
wretched  cowboy  boots  have  a  great  significance  of 
their  own,  and  may  indeed  be  called  insignia  of  a  call- 
ing. There  is  no  prouder  soul  on  earth  than  the  cow- 
boy. He  is  proud  that  he  is  a  horseman,  and  he  has 
a  contempt  for  all  human  beings  who  walk.  He  would 
prefer  death  to  the  following  of  a  plough.  A  dnv's 
walk  through  the  streets  of  the  city  which  he  infre- 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  53 

quently  visits  leaves  him  worn  out  by  evening,  and 
longing  for  the  saddle.  It  is  a  saying  that  he  would 
rather  walk  half  a  mile  to  get  a  horse  in  order  to  cover 
a  distance  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile  than  he  would  to  walk 
the  latter  distance  in  the  first  place.  The  cowboy  does 
not  walk,  and  he  is  proud  of  the  fact.  On  foot  in  his 
stumpy,  tight-toed  boots  he  is  lost.  But  he  wishes  you 
to  understand  that  he  never  is  on  foot.  And  if  you 
ride  beside  him  and  watch  his  seat  in  the  big  cow 
saddle  you  will  find  that  his  high  and  narrow  heels 
prevent  the  slipping  forward  of  the  foot  in  the  stirrup, 
into  which  he  jams  his  feet  nearly  full  length.  If 
there  is  a  fall,  the  cowboy's  foot  never  hangs  in  the 
stirrup.  So  he  finds  his  little  boots  not  so  unservice- 
able, and  retains  them  as  a  matter  of  pride.  Boots 
made  for  the  cowboy  trade  sometimes  have  fancy  tops 
of  bright-coloured  leather.  The  Lone  Star  of  Texas 
is  not  infrequent  in  their  ornamentation. 

The  curious  pride  of  the  horseman  nearly  always 
extends  also  to  his  gloves.  The  cowboy  is  very  careful 
in  the  selection  of  his  gloves.  The  Ishmaelite  clothier 
who  sells  him  shoddy  stuffs  at  outrageous  prices  in  his 
clothing  knows  better  than  to  offer  the  range  rider 
sheepskin  in  his  gloves.  You  will  be  unable  also  to 
find  these  gloves  in  the  Eastern  cities.  The  proper 
glove  will  be  made  of  the  finest  buckskin,  which  will 
not  be  injured  by  wetting.  It  will  probably  be  tanned 
white  and  cut  with  a  deep  cuff  or  gauntlet,  from  which 
will  hang  a  little  fringe.  The  fluttering  of  little  bits 
and  things  in  the  wind  when  at  full  speed  of  horse- 
back was  always  one  of  the  curious  Western  notions 
which  were  slow  of  change. 

The  hat  of  the  cowboy  is  one  of  the  typical  and 
striking  features  of  his  costume,  and  one  upon  which 
he  always  bestows  the  greatest  of  care.  The  tender- 


54:  THE  STORY  OP  THE  COWBOY. 

foot  is  known  upon  the  range  by  his  hat.  He  thinks 
it  correct  to  wear  a  wide  white  hat,  and  so  buys  one  for 
a  couple  of  dollars.  He  is  pained  and  grieved  to  find 
that  at  the  ranch  he  is  derided  for  wearing  a  "  wool 
hat,"  and  he  is  still  more  discontented  with  his  head 
covering  when  he  finds  that  the  first  heavy  rain  has 
caused  it  to  lop  down  and  lose  all  its  shape.  The 
cowboy  riding  by  his  side  wears  a  heavy  white  felt 
hat  with  a  heavy  leather  band  buckled  about  it,  which 
perhaps  he  bought  five  years  before  at  a  cost  of  fifteen 
or  twenty  dollars;  but  he  refers  with  pride  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  a  "  genuwine  Stetson,  an'  a  shore  good  un." 
There  has  been  no  head  covering  devised  so  suitable  as 
this  for  the  uses  of  the  plains.  The  heavy  boardlike 
felt  is  practically  indestructible.  The  brim  flaps  a 
little,  and  in  time  comes  to  be  turned  up,  and  possi- 
bly held  fast  to  the  crown  by  means  of  a  thong.  The 
cowpuncher  may  stiffen  the  brim  by  passing  a  thong 
through  a  series  of  holes  pierced  through  the  outer 
edge.  The  heavy  texture  of  this  felt  repels  the  blaz- 
ing rays  of  the  sun  better  than  any  helmet.  There 
are  no  recorded  cases  of  sunstroke  on  the  range.  The 
record  might  be  different  were  straw  hats  or  "  derbys  " 
substituted  for  the  rational  headgear  which  for  so  long 
has  been  the  accepted  thing  in  the  cowboy  country. 
The  cowboy  can  depend  upon  his  hat  at  all  seasons. 
In  the  rain  it  is  an  umbrella.  In  the  sun  it  is  a  shade 
and  a  safeguard.  At  night,  if  he  sleeps  cold,  he  can 
place  it  beneath  his  hips,  and  in  the  winter  he  can  tie 
it  down  about  his  ears  with  his  handkerchief,  thus 
escaping  the  frostbite  which  sometimes  assails  tender- 
feet  who  rely  upon  the  best  of  caps  with  ear-flaps.  A 
derby  hat  is  classed  contemptuously  under  the  general 
term  "  hard  hat."  Once  upon  a  time  a  ranch  foreman 
went  to  Kansas  to  get  married,  and  report  came  back 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  55 

from  the  town  that  he  had  been  seen  wearing  a  "  hard 
hat."  It  required  many  and  elaborate  explanations 
on  his  part  to  restore  confidence  in  him  after  his  re- 
turn to  the  ranch.  There  are  many  stories  which  re- 
count the  wild  delight  with  which  the  cowboys  greeted 
the  appearance  of  a  silk  hat  in  a  frontier  town  where 
they  and  the  owner  of  such  hat  happened  to  be  so- 
journing together,  and  it  is  literally  true  that  in  the 
earlier  days  of  the  frontier  such  hats  were  often  shot 
"  full  of  holes  "  by  cowpunchers  who  did  not  wait  for 
the  removal  of  the  hat  from  the  owner's  head.  These 
stories  date  to  the  wilder  days  of  the  cattle  towns,  when 
one  of  the  favourite  amusements  of  the  wild  range 
men  was  to  induce  some  tenderfoot  to  dance  for  them 
by  means  of  the  persuasive  argument  of  shooting  into 
the  ground  close  to  his  feet.  Such  times  passed  away 
long  ago.  To-day  there  are  many  gray-headed  cowboys 
on  the  range  who  solemnly  deny  that  they  ever  did 
exist. 

A  starched  collar  was  never  seen  on  the  cow  range, 
and  it  is  matter  of  doubt  what  might  occur  to  it  were 
it  attempted  by  one  of  the  cowboys  of  a  ranch.  The 
wearer  would  probably  soon  find  himself  the  possessor 
of  some  nickname  which  would  cling  to  him  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  with  annoying  adhesiveness.  The  neck- 
wear of  the  cowboy  is  to-day  what  it  was  decades  ago. 
The  loose  shirt  collar  has  loosely  thrown  about  it  a 
silk  kerchief,  which  may  rest  about  the  neck  quite 
above  the  shirt  collar.  The  kerchief  is  tied  in  a  hard 
knot  in  front,  and  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  devoted  to 
the  uses  of  a  neck  scarf,  yet  it  will  be  found  a  great 
comfort  to  the  back  of  one's  neck  when  riding  in  a 
hot  wind.  The  cowboy  very  probably  wears  the  ker- 
chief in  his  peculiar  fashion  out  of  deference  to  the 
conventional  style  of  the  range.  It  is  sure  to  be  of 


56  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

some  bright  colour,  usually  red,,  for  these  strong  and 
barbarous  natures  have  learned  no  admiration  for  the 
degenerate  colours,,  such  as  pale  green  and  the  like. 

A  peculiar  and  distinctive  feature  of  the  cowboy's 
costume  is  his  "  chaps  "  (chaparejos).  Here  the  inex- 
perienced man  might  think  he  had  found  ground  to 
twit  the  cowpuncher  with  affectation,  for  the  heavy, 
wide-legged  and  deeply  fringed  leg  covers  certainly 
do  have  rather  a  wild  look.  The  "  chaps  "  are  simply 
two  very  wide  and  full-length  trouser-legs  made  of 
heavy  calfskin,  and  connected  by  a  narrow  belt  or 
strap.  They  are  cut  away  entirely  at  front  and  back, 
so  that  they  cover  only  the  thigh  and  lower  legs,  and 
do  not  heat  the  body  as  a  full  leather  garment  would. 
They  are  loose,  roomy,  and  airy,  and  not  in  the  least 
binding  or  confining  to  the  limb,  for  the  cowboy  wears 
no  tight  thing  about  him  except  his  boots.  The  use- 
fulness of  the  "  chaps  "  can  be  very  quickly  and  thor- 
oughly learned  by  any  one  who  rides  with  a  cowboy 
for  a  single  day  over  the  ordinary  country  of  the  range. 
They  are  not  intended  for  warmth  at  all,  but  simply  as 
a  protection  against  branches,  thorns,  briers,  and  the 
like,  being  as  serviceable  among  the  willow  switches 
and  sage  brush  of  the  North  as  against  the  mesquite 
and  cactus  chaparral  of  the  South.  The  invention,  of 
course,  came  from  the  old  Spaniards,  who  gave  us  all 
the  essential  ideas  of  the  cattle  trade.  In  the  country 
where  chaparejos  were  first  worn  the  cactus,  the  Span- 
ish bayonet,  and  all  the  steellike  hooks  and  whips  of 
the  chaparral  make  a  continual  menace  to  the  horse- 
man. The  hunter  in  following  the  hounds  in  that 
Southwestern  country  has  perhaps  at  times  found  him- 
self in  the  middle  of  a  dense  growth  of  cacti  which 
reached  higher  than  his  head  as  he  sat  in  the  saddle. 
To  turn  in  any  direction  seemed  impossible,  and  every 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  57 

movement  of  the  horse  brought  fresh  thorns  against 
the  unprotected  legs  of  the  rider.  Well  for  him 
then  had  his  legs  been  incased  in  the  "  chaps "  he 
should  have  worn.  Not  even  the  best  tanned  calfskin 
always  serves  to  turn  the  thorns  and  daggers  of  the 
cactus.  Sometimes  there  is  seen,  more  often  upon 
the  southern  range,  a  cowboy  wearing  "  chaps  "  made 
of  skins  tanned  with  the  hair  on.  These  appendages, 
with  their  long  shaggy  covering  of  black  or  white  hair, 
would  again  tempt  the  inexperienced  to  twit  the  cow- 
bo}^  with  affectation,  but  once  more  he  would  be  wrong. 
The  cowboy  of  the  Southwest  long  ago  learned  that 
goatskin  left  with  the  hair  on  would  turn  the  cactus 
thorns  better  than  any  other  material. 

The  overcoat  of  the  cowboy,  or  rather  his  overcoat 
and  mackintosh  combined,  is  the  ever-present  "  slick- 
er "  which  he  is  most  pleased  to  wear  tied  behind  him 
at  the  thongs  of  his  saddle.  This  garment  is  an  oil- 
skin, similar  to  that  used  by  fishermen  on  the  sea- 
coast.  It  is  cheap,  almost  indestructible,  and  exactly 
suited  to  its  uses. 

At  times  in  the  winter  time,  and  in  a  colder  coun- 
try, the  cowboy  slips  on  a  blanket  coat,  a  long  garment 
of  heavy  brown  canvas  lined  with  flannel.  These  coats, 
in  a  better  grade,  however,  than  is  usually  found  upon 
the  cow  range,  are  issued  by  the  Government  to  the 
soldiers  at  the  Northern  army  posts,  and  the  teamsters 
there  declare  they  are  as  warm  as  a  buffalo  overcoat. 
Of  course,  upon  the  range  in  a  cold  Northern  country, 
where  the  thermometer  at  times  reaches  45°  below 
zero,  the  cowboy  abandons  distinctive  type  in  cloth- 
ing and  dresses,  as  do  all  men  in  that  climate,  in  the 
warmest  clothing  at  hand.  He  will  wear  mittens  then 
instead  of  gloves,  and  will  have  heavy  overshoes  upon 
his  feet.  Perhaps  he  will  take  to  the  heavy  knit  Ger- 


58  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

man  socks  or  to  the  felt  boots  of  the  North.  In  such 
costume,  however,  we  do  not  find  the  cowpuncher  at 
his  usual  work,  and  so  may  dismiss  it  as  not  pertain- 
ing to  his  dress  properly  speaking. 

The  wearing  of  arms  upon  the  person  is  in  many  of 
the  Western  territories  now  prohibited  by  law,  and  it 
is  no  longer  customary  to  see  the  cowpuncher  wearing 
the  revolver  or  even  carrying  the  Winchester  which 
at  a  time  not  many  years  ago  were  part  of  his  regular 
outfit.  In  some  of  the  ruder  parts  of  the  range,  and  at 
some  seasons  of  the  dangerous  cattle  wars,  it  was  a 
matter  of  personal  safety  that  required  such  arms  and 
a  ready  familiarity  with  them.  For  instance,  the  laws 
of  New  Mexico  required  the  citizen  to  "  lay  aside  his 
arms  upon  reaching  the  settlements/'  and  said  noth- 
ing against  the  wearing  of  arms  in  the  country  outside 
the  towns.  The  law  was  made  for  the  safety  of  organ- 
ized society,  for  the  arms  bearers  rarely  came  to  town 
except  upon  times  of  hilarity  and  drunkenness,  and 
more  than  ninety  per  cent  of  the  "  killings  "  of  the 
West  occurred  among  men  where  intoxicants  had  been 
in  use  or  were  near  at  hand.  Thus  the  notorious  Joel 
Fowler,  who  was  eventually  hung  in  Socorro,  New 
Mexico,  in  1883,  had  been  required  by  the  sheriff  to 
"  give  up  his  gun  "  as  soon  as  he  came  in  town,  his 
character  when  under  the  influence  of  liquor  being 
well  known.  Fowler  unbuckled  his  belt  and  gave  the 
sheriff  his  revolver,  but  kept  a  knife  concealed  about 
him.  Less  than  two  hours  later,  when  crazy  drunk, 
he  stabbed  and  killed  his  own  ranch  foreman  and  best 
friend,  who  had  tried  to  persuade  and  quiet  him. 
The  young  sentiment  then  just  growing  in  favour  of 
law  and  order  allowed  Fowler  his  trial  for  this,  but  his 
lawyers  took  appeal  and  got  the  final  hanging  post- 
poned for  too  long  a  time;  so  the  citizens,  who  had 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  59 

only  waited  for  the  hanging  as  matter  of  form,,  con- 
cluded to  save  expense  and  keep  on  the  safe  side  by 
hanging  Joel  themselves,  which  they  did,  leaving  him, 
in  spite  of  his  loud  objections  thereto,  suspended  to 
a  telegraph  pole.  That  was  back  in  what  might  be 
called  the  old  times  on  the  range,  yet  even  then  the 
sentiment  against  bearing  arms  was  beginning  to  be 
felt,  and  some  ranch  owners  would  not  allow  their 
men  to  carry  the  revolver  at  all.  Later  on,  say  in 
1887,  on  some  of  the  ranges  not  so  wild  as  the  far 
Southwestern  country,  there  was  slowly  growing  a 
sentiment  against  the  wearing  of  a  "  gun."  In  1894, 
in  one  of  the  wildest  parts  of  Texas,  one  heard  a  ranch 
foreman  say,  with  a  noticeable  personal  pride,  that  he 
"never  did  pack  a  gun."  The  candour  of  this  state- 
ment is  open  to  a  shadow  of  doubt,  for  that  same  fore- 
man had  spent  his  life  upon  the  cow  range,  and  in  the 
old  times  the  cowpuncher  certainly  did  "  pack  a  gun/' 
Indeed,  he  looked  upon  it  as  a  part  of  his  dress  and  .one 
of  the  necessities  of  life,  and  as  such  it  should  be  men- 
tioned here. 

The  cowboy  never  wore  "  galluses  "  (braces),  and 
he  rarely  wore  a  belt  to  support  his  trousers,  depend- 
ing upon  buttoning  them  tightly  enough  for  that 
purpose;  but  he  did  wear  a  belt,  this  the  wide,  heavy 
leather  belt  that  carried  his  pistol  holster.  This  belt 
had  loops  for  half  a  hundred  cartridges,  and  the 
total  weight  of  the  affair,  gun  and  all,  was  several 
pounds.  No  pistol  of  less  than  .44  calibre  was  toler- 
ated on  the  range,  the  solid  framed  .45  being  the  one 
almost  universally  used.  The  length  of  the  barrel  of 
this  arm  was  eight  inches,  and  it  shot  a  rifle  cartridge 
of  forty  grains  of  powder  and  a  blunt-ended  bullet  that 
made  a  terrible  missile.  In  the  shooting  affairs  of  the 
West  some  one  nearly  always  got  killed,  because  the 


60  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

weapons  used  were  really  deadly  ones.  The  tenderfoot 
who  brought  the  little  .32  pistol  of  the  "  States  "  to 
the  range  was  laughed  at  till  he  threw  it  away.  There- 
upon the  tenderfoot  bought  a  .45,  and  was  very 
wretched.  He  found  the  heavy  thing  almost  unsup- 
portable  in  its  constant  dragging  down,  and  he  could 
never  get  at  it  when  he  wished  to  practise  on  a  prairie 
dog.  He  buckled  the  belt  tightly  about  his  waist,  and 
perhaps  decorated  himself  with  one  of  the  useless 
sharp-pointed  knives  which,  for  some  inscrutable  rea- 
son, have  always  had  a  place  and  a  sale  in  the  Eastern 
sporting-goods  shops  under  the  name  of  "  hunting 
knives,"  though  they  are  scorned  by  any  man  who 
really  hunts  or  who  has  ever  lived  in  the  West.  If 
our  tenderfoot  would  study  the  belt  of  the  cowpuncher 
he  might  learn  something  to ,  his  benefit.  He  would, 
of  course,  see  no  knife  there.  The  foreman  has  a  clasp 
knife  at  the  branding  corral  for  purposes  connected 
with  his  work,  but  the  cowboy  has  none  at  his  belt. 
The  belt  itself  is  not  buckled  about  his  waist  at  all, 
but  is  worn  loose,  resting  upon  the  point  of  the  hip  on 
the  left  side,  and  hanging  low  down  upon  the  hip  on 
the  right  side,  none  of  the  weight"  of  the  gun  coming 
upon  the  soft  parts  of  the  abdomen  at  all.  In  riding, 
a  cowpuncher's  gun  is  no  incumbrance  to  him,  and  he 
gives  it  no  more  thought  than  a  well-dressed  man  does 
his  necktie.  Yet  quicker  than  the  latter  citizen  could 
jerk  loose  his  tie  the  cowpuncher  can  jerk  loose  his 
gun.  Knowing  the  value  of  time  and  the  danger  of 
overshooting  in  a  little  affair,  he  will  begin  to  "  set 
the  gun  agoing  "  as  soon  as  it  gets  out  of  the  holster, 
maybe  cutting  a  little  dust  inside  the  distance  of  his 
man,  but  before  the  second  or  so  of  the  time  of  the 
shooting  is  past  something  has  usually  happened. 
Some  of  the  bad  men  of  the  West  tied  back  or  re- 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  61 

moved  altogether  the  triggers  of  their  revolvers,  thus 
simplifying  the  lock  and  making  it  more  absolutely  cer- 
tain. The  gun  can  be  fired  much  more  quickly  by 
cocking  and  releasing  the  hammer  with  the  thumb, 
all  six  of  the  shots  being  thus  almost  continuous  in  the 
hands  of  a  trained  gun  fighter.  The  two  horse  thieves 
who  were  killed  in  lower  Kansas  by  Three-finger  Car- 
ter, after  their  long  flight  across  the  range  from  Ne- 
braska in  the  early  '80's,  had  their  revolvers  thus 
arranged.  Though  Carter  was  lucky  enough  to  get 
in  two  shots  with  a  Sharps  rifle,  which  killed  one  and 
disabled  the  other  before  they  had  managed  to  hit 
him,  he  said  that  the  "  ar  was  plum  full  o'  lead  "  while 
he  was  getting  in  his  second  cartridge.  The  well- 
founded  respect  which  the  cowpuncher  had  for  sim- 
plicity and  certainty  in  his  arms  caused  him  to  gener- 
ally reject  the  double-action  revolver.  His  depend- 
ence was  placed  in  the  old-style  single-action  revolver, 
with  the  wooden  handle.  Some  young  and  more  mod- 
ern cowboys  sometimes  "  toted "  guns  with  pearl  or 
ivory  handles,  on  which  the  head  of  a  "  longhorn " 
was  sometimes  engraved  handsomely;  but  these  works 
of  art  were  not  cherished  in  the  holsters  of  the  old- 
time  men.  The  genuine  cowboy  of  the  times  when 
some  men  needed  guns  and  all  men  carried  them, 
wanted  a  gun  that  would  "  shore  go  off  "  when  it  was 
wanted.  It  needed  to  be  an  arm  which  would  stand 
rain  and  sun  and  sand,  which  could  be  dropped  in  a 
stampede  and  run  over  by  a  herd  of  cattle,  but  which 
when  picked  up  would  still  be  ready  to  go  to  shooting. 
The  cowpuncher  wore  his  revolver  on  the  right 
hip  (if  a  right-handed  man),  and  the  butt  of  it  pointed 
backward.  The  army  man  wears  his  revolver  on  the 
left  side,  with  the  butt  pointing  forward — about  as 
poor  a  way  as  could  be  devised,  though  of  course  the 


62  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

saber  is  supposed  to  occupy  the  right  hand  of  the 
cavalryman  and  most  of  his  personal  attention.  The 
cavalryman  who  goes  on  many  plains  marches  soon 
learns  of  the  plainsman  how  to  carry  his  belt  without 
fatiguing  himself  to  death  with  his  own  weapons. 

An  essential  part  of  the  cowpuncher's  outfit  is  his 
"  rope."  This  is  carried  in  a  coil  at  the  left  side  of 
the  saddle-horn,  fastened  by  one  of  the  many  thongs 
which  are  scattered  over  the  saddle.  The  rope  in  the 
Spanish  country  is  called  reata  (la  reata),  and  even 
to-day  is  often  made  of  rawhide,  with  an  eye  re-enforced 
with  that  durable  material.  Such  a  hide  rope  is  called 
a  "  lariat "  in  the  South.  The  reata  was  softened  and 
made  pliable  by  dragging  it  for  some  days  behind  the 
ranch  wagon  or  at  the  saddle,  the  trailing  on  the 
ground  performing  this  function  perfectly.  The 
modern  rope  is  merely  a  well-made  three-quarter-inch 
hemp  rope,  about  thirty  feet  in  length,  with  a  leather 
eye  admitting  a  free  play  of  the  noose,  the  eye  being 
sometimes  well  soaped  to  make  the  rope  run  freely. 
This  implement  is  universally  called  on  the  range  a 
"  rope."  The  term  "  lasso,"  which  we  read  about  in 
books,  is  never  heard,  unless  in  California,  nor  is  the 
common  term  of  the  Mexican,  "  reata"  The  "  lariat " 
is  in  the  North  used  sometimes  as  another  term,  more 
especially  to  describe  the  picket  rope  by  which  the 
horse  is  tied  out.  In  Texas  this  would  be  called  a 
"  stake  rope."  The  common  name  gives  the  verb 
form,  and  the  cowpuncher  never  speaks  of  "  lassoing  " 
an  animal,  but  of  "  roping  "  it. 

The  "  quirt "  of  the  cowpuncher  (possibly  from 
the  Spanish  cuerda,  a  cord  or  thong)  is  a  short  and 
heavy  whip,  made  with  a  short  stock  less  than  a  foot 
in  length,  and  carrying  a  lash  made  of  three  or  four 
heavy  and  loose  thongs.  The  handle  is  a  wooden  stick, 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  63 

or  sometimes  a  short  iron  rod,  covered  with  braided 
leather,  and  a  thong  attaches  the  quirt  to  the  wrist. 
The  quirt  is  now  made  as  a  regular  article  of  saddlery, 
but  in  the  early  days  the  cowboys  often  made  their 
own  quirts.  The  cowpuncher  took  to  leather  and  raw- 
hide as  a  fish  to  water,  and  some  of  them,  especially 
those  from  the  Spanish  Southwest,  were  exceedingly 
clever  leather  workers.  But  they  never  cared  much 
for  the  fancy-coloured  quirts  so  ingeniously  braided  of 
horsehair  by  the  Mexicans,  who  are  fonder  of  display 
than  the  American  cowpuncher  proper.  The  quirt 
was  merely  supplement  to  the  spur  which  the  cow- 
puncher wore  on  each  foot.  The  spur  in  the  old  days 
was  made  with  a  very  large  rowel,  the  latter  being  a 
great  wheel,  with  blunt  teeth  an  inch  long  about  its 
circumference.  Often  little  bells  or  oblong  pieces  of 
metal  ornamented  this  spur,  the  tinkling  of  which 
appealed  to  the  childlike  nature  of  the  plains  rider  of 
the  early  days.  The  style  of  spur  has  come  down  with- 
out pronounced  change. 

The  bridle  used  by  the  cowboy — for  we  may  as 
well  continue  to  speak  also  of  the  dress  of  the  cowboy's 
horse — was  noticeable  for  its  tremendously  heavy  and 
cruel  curbed  bit.  This  bit  was  originated  by  the  most 
cruel  people  in  the  world,  the  Spaniards,  and  it  has 
in  some  form  retained  its  hold  in  the  most  cruel  occu- 
pation of  the  world,  the  cattle  business  of  the  plains. 
A  long  shank  hung  down  from  the  bit  on  either  side 
of  the  mouth,  and  low  down  on  these  shanks  were 
fastened  the  reins,  with  a  leverage  sufficient  fairly  to 
tear  the  jaw  off  a  pony.  Inside  the  mouth  there  was 
a  cross  bar  of  iron,  made  with  a  IT  bend  in  the  middle. 
The  pull  on  the  reins  could  sink  this  U  deep  into  the 
horse's  tongue,  sometimes  nearly  cutting  it  off.  Very 
severe  was  the  "  spade  bit,"  which  could  be  forced 


64:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

into  a  horse's  mouth  willy-nilly,  and  still  more  cruel 
was  the  "  ring  bit,"  with  its  circle  slipped  over  the 
lower  jaw  of  the  horse.  This  savage  Spanish  bit  went 
out  of  common  use  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  cattle  men 
came  in.  It  wras  capable  of  breaking  the  jaw  of  a 
horse,  and  has  been  known  to  do  so.  More  humane 
bits  are  used  now  than  in  the  past,  and  probably  horses 
are  upon  the  average  not  so  "  broncho  "  as  the  original 
Spanish  ponies.  In  the  wild  riding  of  the  cowboy  he 
sometimes  mercilessly  jerks  the  pony  up  with  his  ter- 
rible bit,  so  sharply  as  to  throw  it  back  upon  its 
haunches.  The  horsemanship  of  the  plains  has  abso- 
lutely no  reference  to  the  feelings  of  the  horse.  It 
is  the  part  of  the  latter  to  obey,  and  that  at  once. 
Yet  in  the  ordinary  riding,  and  even  in  the  arduous 
work  of  the  round-up  and  in  cutting  out,  the  cow- 
puncher  uses  the  bit  very  little,  nor  exerts  any  pressure 
on  the  reins.  He  lays  the  reins  against  the  neck  of  the 
pony  on  the  side  opposite  to  the  direction  in  which  he 
wishes  it  to  go,  merely  turning  his  hand  in  the  direc- 
tion, and  inclining  his  body  in  the  same  way.  He 
rides  with  the  pressure  of  the  knee  and  the  inclination 
of  the  body,  and  the  light  side  shifting  of  both  reins 
equally  tightened.  A  cow  pony  does  not  know  what 
you  want  of  it  if  you  pull  upon  the  rein  on  one  side. 
They  have  been  known  to  resent  such  liberties  very 
promptly. 

The  saddle  of  the  cowboy  is  the  first,  last,  and 
most  important  part  of  his  outfit.  It  is  a  curious 
thing,  this  saddle  developed  by  the  cattle  trade,  and 
the  world  has  no  other  like  it.  It  is  not  the  production 
of  fad  or  fancy,  but  of  necessity.  Its  great  weight — • 
a  regular  cow  saddle  weighs  from  thirty  to  forty 
pounds — is  readily  excusable  when  one  remembers  that 
it  is  not  only  seat  but  workbench  for  the  cowman. 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  05 

A  light  saddle  would  be  torn  to  pieces  at  the  first 
rush  of  a  maddened  steer,  but  the  sturdy  frame  of  a 
cow  saddle  will  throw  the  heaviest  bull  on  the  range. 
The  saddle  is  made  for  riding  upon  a  country  essen- 
tially flat,  and  it  is  not  intended  for  jumping — indeed, 
can  not  be  used  for  high  jumping,  with  its  high  cantle 
and  pommel.  Yet  it  is  exactly  right  for  the  use  for 
which  it  is  designed.  The  high  cantle  gives  a  firmness 
to  the  seat  of  the  cowboy  when  he  snubs  a  steer  with  a 
sternness  sufficient  to  send  it  rolling  heels  over  head. 
The  high  pommel,  or  "  horn,"  steel  forged  and  covered 
with  cross  braids  of  honest  leather,  serves  as  anchor 
post  for  this  same  steer,  a  turn  of  the  rope  about  it 
accomplishing  that  purpose  at  once.  The  tree  of  the 
saddle  forks  low  down  over  the  back  of  the  pony,  so 
that  the  saddle  sits  firmly  and  can  not  readily  be  pulled 
off.  The  great  broad  cinches — especially  the  hind 
cinch  so  much  detested  by  the  pony,  and  a  frequent 
incentive  to  steady  bucking — bind  the  big  saddle  fast 
to  the  pony  until  they  are  practically  one  fabric.  The 
long  and  heavy  wooden  stirrups  seem  ungraceful  till 
one  has  ridden  in  them,  and  then  he  would  use  no 
other  sort.  The  strong  wooden  house  of  the  stirrup 
protects  the  foot  from  being  crushed  when  riding 
through  timber  or  among  cattle  or  other  horses.  The 
pony  can  not  bite  the  foot — as  he  sometimes  has  a 
fashion  of  doing  viciously — through  the  wood  and  the 
long  cover  or  leather  that  sometimes  further  protects 
it,  neither  can  the  thorns'  scratch  the  foot  or  the  limbs 
of  trees  drag  the  foot  from  its  place. 

The  shape  of  the  tree  of  the  cow  saddle  is  the  best 
that  can  be  made  for  its  use,  though  it  or  any  other 
tree  is  hard  upon  the  pony's  back,  for  the  saddle  is 
heavy  of  itself,  and  the  rider  is  no  mere  stripling.  The 
deep  seat  is  a  good  chair  for  a  man  who  is  in  it  nearly 


66  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

all  the  year.  In  the  saddle  the  cowpuncher  stands 
nearly  upright,  his  legs  in  a  line  from  his  shoulders  and 
hips  down.  He  rides  partly  with  the  balancing  seat,  and 
does  not  grip  with  his  knees  so  much  as  one  must  in 
sitting  a  pad  saddle,  but  his  saddle  is  suited  to  his 
calling,  and  it  is  a  bad  horse  and  a  big  steer  that  shall 
shake  him,  no  matter  what  the  theories  of  it  be.  The 
question  of  the  cowpuncher's  saddle  and  his  use  of  it 
can  be  covered  with  a  little  conversation  once  heard 
on  the  trail  of  a  cow  outfit.  A  gentleman  of  foreign 
birth,  but  of  observing  habits,  was  telling  a  cow- 
puncher  what  he  thought  about  his  riding  and  his 
saddle.  "  I  say,  you  couldn't  jump  a  fence  in  that 
thing,  you  know,"  said  he. 

"  Stranger,"  said  the  cowpuncher,  "  this  yer  is 
God's  country,  an'  they  ain't  no  fences,  but  I  shore 
think  I  could  jump  more  fences  than  you  could 
rope  steers  if  you  rid  in  that  postage  stamp  thing  of 
yourTi." 

The  cowboy  loves  his  own  style  of  saddle,  but  he 
goes  further  than  that.  He  is  particular  to  a  nicety 
in  selecting  his  saddle,  and,  having  once  selected  and 
approved  of  it,  he  can  not  be  induced  to  part  with  it 
or  exchange  it  for  any  other.  He  might  sell  his  gun 
or  his  coat  or  his  boots,  and  he  cares  nothing  how 
many  times  he  changes  his  horse,  for  which  he  has  no 
affection  whatever,  but  he  will  never  part  with  his 
saddle.  The  cowboys  who  came  up  with  the  drive 
from  the  lower  range  in  the  early  days  took  their  sad- 
dles back  home  with  them,  no  matter  how  long  the 
journey.  To  sell  one's  saddle  was  a  mark  of  poverty 
and  degradation,  and  perhaps  the  cowpuncher  felt 
about  it  much  as  the  Spartan  mother  about  the  loss 
of  her  son's  shield.  No  matter  how  dark  it  is  when 
he  saddles  up,  no  cowpuncher  ever  gets  any  saddle 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  67 

but  his  own.,  and  should  any  one  borrow  or  misplace 
his  there  is  apt  to  be  explanation  demanded. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  "  Texas  saddle/'  or  the 
first  type  of  the  cow  saddles,  these  articles  were  made 
in  the  shops  of  the  Southwest.  Before  long,  however, 
after  the  drive  got  into  the  Northern  country,  the 
saddles  of  Cheyenne  became  the  favourites  of  the  range, 
North  and  South,  they  being  made  of  better  leather. 
The  "  California  tree "  was  sometimes  used.  There 
was  some  local  variety  in  manufacture,  but  the  saddle 
of  the  cowman  remained  constant  in  the  main  points 
above  mentioned.  The  old  Spaniard  who  designed  it 
put  forth  many  models  which  have  endured  practically 
without  change. 

A  good  saddle  would  cost  the  cowboy  from  forty 
to  one  hundred  dollars.  In  his  boyish  notions  of 
economy  to  want  a  thing  was  to  have  it  if  he  had  the 
money,  and  a  saddle  once  seen  and  coveted  was  apt 
to  be  bought.  The  embossing  and  ornamentation  of 
the  saddle  had  most  to  do  with  its  cost.  The  Spanish 
saddles  of  the  Southwest  were  often  heavily  decorated 
with  silver,  as  were  the  bits,  spurs,  and  bridle  reins, 
as  well  as  the  clothing  of  the  rider;  but  this  sort  of 
foppery  never  prevailed  to  any  extent  among  American 
cow  punchers.  There  was  one  rude  and  wild  sort  of 
decoration  sometimes  in  practise  by  the  younger  cow- 
boys on  the  range.  They  often  took  the  skins  of  rat- 
tlesnakes, of  which  there  were  very  many  seen  nearly 
every  day,  and  spread  them  while  yet  wet  upon  the 
leather  of  their  saddles.  The  natural  glue  of  the  skin 
would  hold  it  firmly  in  place  when  it  dried.  Some 
saddles  have  been  seen  fairly  covered  with  these  lines 
of  diamond-marked  skins.  It  was  not  uncommon  to 
see  the  skins  of  these  snakes  also  used  as  hat  bands. 

Let  us  suppose  that  chance  has  brought  us  to  some 


68  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

one  of  the  little  frontier  towns  in  or  near  the  edge  of 
the  cattle  country,  and  that  there  is  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  village  a  band  of  cattle  in  the  care  of  the 
usual  outfit  of  cowboys.  Perhaps  the  duties  of  these 
are  well  over  for  the  time,  they  having  shipped  their 
cattle  or  turned  them  over  to  another  owner.  It  is  in 
the  evening,  and  the  party  of  cowboys  have  concluded 
to  come  to  town  for  a  little  celebration.  Far  across 
the  open  prairie  country  we  may  see  them  coming, 
their  way  marked  by  the  rapidly  flitting  cloud  of  white 
dust.  In  a  few  moments  they  are  near  enough  for  one 
to  make  out  their  figures.  They  sit  straight  up  in  the 
saddle,  their  legs  straight  down,  the  body  motionless 
except  through  the  action  of  the  horse.  They  are 
in  their  shirt  sleeves,  their  hats  blowing  back,  their 
right  hands  occasionally  wielding  the  quirts  as  they 
race  headlong  over  the  rough  ground  of  the  unbroken 
prairies.  Now  and  again  their  heels  strike  home  the 
spurs  to  push  on  the  racing  ponies,  which  come  flying, 
their  heads  low  down,  their  legs  gathered  well  under 
them,  their  ears  back,  their  nostrils  wide.  As  the 
wild  range  men  come  on  one  hears  their  shrill  call,  the 
imitation  of  the  coyote  yelp.  They  dash  into  the  main 
street  of  the  town,  never  drawing  rein,  but  spurring 
and  whipping  the  harder,  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  mak- 
ing a  louder  beat  upon  the  hard  streets.  On  they  ride, 
yelling  and  spurring,  their  loose  scarfs  flying,  but  oach 
man  upright  and  steady  as  a  statue  in  his  seat.  They 
arrive  at  the  main  portion  of  the  town,  perhaps  at  the 
central  "  square,"  about  which  some  of  these  towns 
are  built.  Still  at  full  speed,  each  man  sudd  only  pulls 
np  his  horse  with  a  strong  jerk  upward  of  his  hand. 
The  heavy  bit  does  its  work.  The  pony,  with  its  head 
tossed  high  by  the  sudden  pull,  which  it  has  learned 
instantly  to  obey,  throws  its  weight  back  as  it  does 


THE  COWBOY'S  OUTFIT.  69 

in  the  corral  when  the  rope  has  flown.  It  falls  back 
upon  its  hind  legs,  sliding  upon  its  fetlocks,  and  com- 
ing to  a  stop  from  full  speed  within  a  few  feet.  Be- 
fore it  has  fully  paused  the  rider  is  off  and  has  thrown 
the  reins  down  over  its  head.  Then,  while  the  pony 
rolls  its  eye  in  resentment,  you  will  have  opportunity 
to  see  the  cowboy  on  his  feet  and  dressed  in  his  work- 
ing clothes. 


CHAPTEE  Y. 

THE  COWBOY'S  HOUSE. 

THE  earliest  written  records  of  mankind  show  that 
man  was  first  a  warrior  and  next  a  cattle  man,  and  that 
most  of  his  wars  were  over  cows.  We  are  told  that 
the  Aryans  were  cowmen  by  universal  occupation,  and 
it  is  pointed  out  to  us  that  the  Sanskrit  word  for  king 
means  nothing  more  than  chief  of  cowboys,  or  other- 
wise foreman  of  the  ranch.  Our  word  "  pecuniary  "  is 
directly  derived  from  the  Latin  pecus,  thus  pointing 
back  sharply  to  the  time  when  the  cow  was  the  unit 
of  all  values.  The  ancient  warrior  of  Europe  paid  so 
many  cows  for  his  wife,  as  the  warrior  of  the  red  peo- 
ples of  America  pays  so  many  ponies,  or  as  the  head 
men  of  the  pale  faces  to-day  pay  so  many  dollars,  by 
a  slight  modification  of  standards  and  customs.  It 
needs  but  the  most  casual  glance  back  over  the  his- 
tory of  the  race  to  see  how  primitive,  how  strong  and 
steadfast,  have  been  the  customs  of  the  cattle  men  from 
the  time  of  the  Aryans  to  the  time  of  the  beef  barons 
of  a  decade  ago.  Until  within  a  very  short  time  a  cow 
was  a  cow  on  the  cattle  range,  and  one  cow  was  as 
good  as  another.  Surely  it  was  a  radical  and  omin- 
ous change  which  broke  down  so  old  and  strong  a 
custom.  It  means  that  the  days  of  our  Sanskrit  and 
Roman  and  Western  heroes,  men  "  who  fought  about 
cows,"  are  gone  forever,  and  that  a  new  time  has  set 

70 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  71 

on  in  history,  wherein  the  money  changer  and  the 
merchant  shall  take  their  place  forever.  Woe  is  that 
time  in  the  history  of  any  people. 

In  the  ancient  days  of  the  cattle  industry  the  same 
problems  must  have  presented  themselves  which  were 
offered  to  the  earliest  cattle  men  upon  this  continent. 
These  cows,  which  constituted  the  wealth  of  the  indi- 
vidual, were  four-legged  creatures,  which  could  run 
far  away  from  man,  the  two-legged  creature.  Man 
as  Nature  made  him  cut  a  sorry  figure  as  a  cowboy. 
But  Nature  had  given  to  man  another  creature  as 
strong  as  the  cow,  more  fleet,  and  more  courageous. 
This  creature  man  took  into  his  plans,  and  upon  the 
back  of  the  horse  he  at  once  became  the  physical  supe- 
rior of  the  cow.  With  the  horse  he  is  master  of  his 
herds.  Without  it  he  must  ever  have  remained  the 
hunter,  and  could  never  have  been  the  cattle  man.  He 
could  never  have  organized  his  means  of  increasing 
his  own  wealth  or  of  commanding  it.  Most  intimately 
blended,  then,  is  the  horse  of  the  cowman  with  every 
movement  of  his  calling. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  beyond  the  stage  of  guess- 
work just  at  what  time  the  first  cowman  rode  into 
view  upon  the  hot  and  desert  plains  of  the  vast  South- 
west— that  lean  and  bronzed  fighting  Spaniard  who 
had  set  his  stubborn  foot  upon  the  virgin  soil  of  a  new 
continent  sometime  in  the  early  and  glorious  day  at 
the  opening  of  American  history.  It  is  sure  that  as  a 
military  man  the  Spaniard  knew  the  value  of  a  beef 
herd  with  the  marching  column  or  at  the  base  of  his 
operations.  He  brought  over  cattle  almost  as  soon 
as  he  did  horses,  and  the  one  grew  with  the  other. 
There  is  a  tradition  that  the  Spanish  Government, 
toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  turned  loose 
upon  the  plains  of  the  Southwest  some  numbers  of 


72  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

horses  in  order  to  stock  the  country  with  that  ani- 
mal. The  common  supposition  is  that  the  wild  stock 
of  America  began  in  the  stray  and  runaway  horses 
which  were  lost  by  the  Spaniards.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
the  horse  of  the  Spaniards  soon  had  a  better  hold  on 
American  soil  than  the  Spaniard  himself.  By  the 
year  1700  the  Northern  Indians  had  not  yet  become 
generally  possessed  of  horses,  and  many  of  them  used 
dogs  as  beasts  of  burden,  while  their  hunting  was  all 
done  on  foot.  Yet  at  this  time  the  Southern  Indians 
had  horses,  and  had  learned  to  use  them  extremely 
well.  The  natural  course  of  horse  trading  and  horse 
stealing  soon  spread  the  animal  all  over  the  vast  coun- 
try of  the  West.  The  advent  of  the  horse  upon  this 
continent  changed  the  entire  manner  of  life  of  the 
native  tribes.  It  only  perpetuated  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  people  that  had  brought  the  horse. 
So  strong,  so  virile  were  these  customs  that  the  type 
of  the  horse  itself  has  changed  more  in  three  centuries 
than  that  wild  industry  of  which  it  has  always  been 
and  must  always  be  a  central  figure. 

If  we  should  have  a  look  at  the  continent  of  Eu- 
rope at  the  time  of  the  wars  of  the  Moors  and  Spaniards, 
we  should  see  there  a  state  of  matters  much  as  we  may 
see  upon  our  own  cattle  range.  In  the  north  of  Eu- 
rope the  cattle  and  the  horses,  as  well  as  the  men,  were 
bulky,  powerful,  and  large  of  frame.  In  the  south  of 
Europe  the  cattle,  the  men,  and  the  horses,  reared  in 
a  hot  and  dry  country,  were  smaller,  and  were  lean, 
sinewy,  and  active  rather  than  big  and  bulky.  The 
Moors  were  always  horsemen,  and  they  brought  from 
northern  Africa  with  them  into  Spain  the  horse  of 
a  hot,  dry  land,  a  waterless  land,  where  the  horse  was 
alike  a  necessity  and  a  treasure.  The  Moor  prized  his 
horse,  and  so  developed  of  him  a  creature  of  worth 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  73 

and  serviceableness,  one  which  could  carry  an  armed 
man  all  day  under  a  tropic  sun  and  subsist  upon  such 
food  as  the  desert  offered. 

The  horse  of  the  Moor  became  the  horse  of  the 
Spaniard,  and  the  horse  of  the  Spaniard  became  the 
horse  of  the  Spanish-Indian  or  Mexican,  which  in  turn 
became  the  horse  of  the  cattle  trade  which  was  handed 
down  along  with  it.  The  animal  certainly  found  an 
environment  to  its  liking,  one  indeed  similar  to  that 
which  had  produced  its  type  in  northern  Africa.  The 
suns  of  the  great  Southwest  were  burning,  the  lands 
were  parched  and  dry,  and  small  shade  ever  offered. 
Water  was  rare  and  precious,  and  to  be  reached  only 
by  long  journeys.  These  journeys,  this  dry  and  unfat- 
tening  food  of  the  short  grasses  of  the  hot  plains,  took 
off  every  particle  of  useless  flesh  from  the  frame  of  the 
horse.  It  needs  moisture  to  furnish  fat  to  a  people, 
and  a  fat  person  must  always  be  drinking  water.  The 
Spanish  pony  had  no  more  water  than  would  keep  it 
alive,  and  soon  came  to  learn  how  to  do  without  it  in 
great  measure.  For  generation  after  generation  it  lost 
flesh  and  gained  angles,  lost  beauty  and  gained  "  wind  " 
and  stomach  and  bottom  and  speed,  until  at  the  time 
of  the  first  American  cowboy's  meeting  with  it  it  was 
a  small,  hardy,  wiry,  untamed  brute,  as  wild  as  a  hawk, 
as  fleet  as  a  deer,  as  strong  as  an  ox.  It  had  not  the 
first  line  of  beauty.  Its  outline  of  neck  was  gone  for- 
ever, merged  into  a  hopeless  ewe  neck  which  looked 
weak,  though  it  was  not.  Its  head  was  devoid  of  beauty 
of  outline,  often  Eoman  nosed,  but  still  showing  fine- 
ness and  quality  in  the  front  and  the  muzzle.  Its 
head  was  very  poorly  let  on.  Its  ribs  seemed  a  bit 
flat  and  its  hips  weak.  Its  back  was  reached  up  for- 
ward of  the  "  coupling  "  in  a  pathetic  way,  as  though 
the  arch  were  in  sympathy  with  a  stomach  perpetually 


74:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

tucked  up  from  hunger  or  from  cold.  Its  eye  was  not 
good  to  look  upon,  and  its  fore  legs  not  always  what 
one  would  ask  of  his  favourite  saddler.  But  suppose 
the  stripping  of  Nature  had  been  followed  out  until 
the  bony  framework  of  this  plains  horse  had  been  laid 
quite  bare,  and  the  skeleton  alone  left  in  evidence, 
this  skeleton  would  be  worth  a  study.  The  quality 
of  the  bone  of  this  forearm  would  be  found  dense  and 
ivorylike,  not  spongy  as  the  bone  of  a  big  dray  horse. 
The  hoofs  and  feet  would  be  found  durable  and  sound. 
The  cat-hammed  hips  would  be  seen  to  supplement 
that  despised  roach  in  the  back,  and  we  should  have 
offered  that  grayhound  configuration  which  is  seen  in 
all  the  speedy  animals  where  the  arch  of  the  back  is 
marked  and  the  hind  legs  set  under  and  forward  easily 
in  running.  Such  an  animal '"  reaches  from  behind  " 
well  in  running,  and  turns  quickly.  Moreover,  these 
flat-bladed  shoulders  would  be  seen  to  be  set  on  oblique- 
ly, which  again  one  asks  of  his  speedy  dog  or  racing 
horse,  if  he  knows  the  anatomy  of  speed.  The  shoul- 
ders play  easily  and  freely,  and  the  hind  legs  reach  well 
forward,  and  the  chest,  though  deep  enough  to  give 
the  lungs  and  heart  plenty  of  room,  is  not  too  deep  to 
interfere  with  a  full  extension  of  the  animal  and  a  free 
and  pliant  play  of  the  limbs.  In  short,  the  pony  of  the 
range  as  first  seen  by  the  American  cowboy  was  not  a 
bad  sort  of  running  machine.  It  had,  moreover,  the 
lungs  built  upon  generations  of  rare  pure  air,  the  heart 
of  long  years  of  freedom,  and  the  stomach  of  centuries 
of  dry  feed.  It  stood  less  than  fourteen  hands  high, 
and  weighed  not  more  than  six  hundred  pounds,  but  it 
could  run  all  day  and  then  kick  off  the  hat  of  his  rider 
at  night.  In  form  it  was  not  what  we  call  a  thorough- 
bred, but  in  disposition  it  was  as  truly  a  thorough- 
bred as  ever  stood  on  two  or  four  feet.  Jim,  the  fore- 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  75 

man  of  the  Circle  Arrow  outfit,  down  near  the  line 
of  old  Mexico,  would  have  told  you  long  ago  that  such 
a  horse  had  "  plenty  sand."  It  was  very  well  it  did 
have. 

This  was  the  cow  horse  of  the  Southwest,  and  the 
type  remained  constant  in  that  region  until  the  middle 
of  this  century.  All  the  horses  of  the  North  and  the 
East  on  the  plains  came  up  from  Mexico  and  Texas 
on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Rockies,  where  much  the 
same  sort  of  climatic  conditions  prevailed.  Meanwhile 
there  had  been  another  line  of  migration  of  the  horse, 
also  from  Mexico,  but  up  along  the  California  coast 
west  of  the  Rockies.  There  was  heat  and  dry  air  and 
little  water  for  a  long  way  to  the  North,  but  at  length 
the  wet  climate  of  Oregon  was  reached.  Here  the  way 
of  Nature  went  on  again,  and  the  type  began  to  change. 
The  horse  became  a  trifle  stockier  and  heavier,  not 
quite  so  lean  and  rangy  in  build.  The  cow  horses  of 
the  early  trade  in  Montana  came  in  part  from  Oregon 
across  the  upper  mountain  passes  by  the  route  over 
which  the  Northern  horse  Indians  who  lived  close  to 
the  Rockies  first  got  their  horses.  On  the  northern 
range  the  cow  horse  was  called  a  "  cayuse,"  a  name,  of 
course,  unknown  upon  the  southern  range,  where  the 
horse  was  simply  a  "  cow  horse,"  or,  if  a  very  wild  and 
bad  horse,  was  called  a  "  broncho,"  that  being  the 
Spanish  word  for  "  wild."  The  term  "  broncho  "  has 
spread  all  over  the  cattle  country  and  all  over  the  coun- 
try until  its  original  and  accurate  meaning  is  quite 
lost.  There  never  was  any  very  great  difference  be- 
tween the  horses  of  the  North  and  those  of  the  South, 
for  they  came  of  the  same  stock,  bred  in  the  same  un- 
regulated way,  and  lived  the  same  sort  of  life.  Either 
cayuse  or  broncho  would  buck  in  the  most  crazy  and 
pyrotechnic  style  when  first  ridden,  plunging,  biting, 


76  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

bawling,  and  squealing  in  an  ecstasy  of  rage,  and  either 
would  rear  and  throw  itself  over  backward  with  its 
rider  if  it  got  a  chance,  or  would  lie  down  and  roll  over 
on  him.  The  colour  of  either  was  as  it  happened, 
perhaps  with  a  bit  greater  tendency  to  solid  colours  in 
the  Northern  horse.  Bay,  sorrel,  black,  gray,  "  buck- 
skin," roan,  or  "  calico  "  were  the  usual  colours  of  the 
cow  horses.  In  the  South  a  piebald  horse  was  always 
called  a  "pinto,"  from  the  Spanish  word  meaning 
"  paint."  In  the  upper  parts  of  Texas  one  often  hears 
such  a  horse  called  a  "  paint  horse."  In  the  South  a 
horse  does  not  buck,  but  "  pitches,"  which  comes  to 
the  same  thing  with  a  tenderfoot.  A  "  wall-eyed  pinto 
that  pitches  "  is  an  adjunct  to  be  found  upon  almost 
any  Southern  ranch  even  to-day.  Both  in  the  South 
and  in  the  North  the  horses  are  now  generally  bred  up 
by  crosses  of  "  American  horses,"  though  this  is  much 
a  misnomer,  for  the  cow  horse  is  the  American  horse 
per  se  and  par  excellence. 

In  the  "  States  "  we  pen  our  cattle  and  house  our 
horses,  and  have  both  horse  and  cow  always  at  hand 
and  under  control.  Not  so  fortunate  is  the  cowboy 
with  his  mount.  The  latter  is  a  wild  animal  loose  upon 
the  range.  From  year's  end  to  year's  end  it  has  no 
care  but  the  hand  of  mastery  and  no  food  but  that 
afforded  by  Nature.  This  we  shall  say  for  the  cow 
horse  proper,  and  as  applying  to  the  days  of  ranching 
in  the  old  times,  before  modern  methods  had  come  in. 
On  the  upper  ranges,  where  the  snows  of  winter  are 
on  the  ground  for  long  months  and  the  weather  is 
often  very  cold,  it  has  long  been  the  custom  to  make 
all  the  hay  possible  and  to  keep  a  little  feed  on  hand 
for  use  in  winter.  Even  in  the  country  of  the  middle 
range,  as  in  the  Indian  Nations,  baled  hay  and  oats  are 
used  in  the  winter  for  the  saddle  band.  This,  how- 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  77 

ever,  is  not  that  typical  ranching  of  the  old  times 
which  will  offer  us  most  of  picturesqueness  and  of  in- 
terest. In  those  loose,  wild  times  the  cow  horse  was 
treated  the  same  as  the  cow,  with  only  such  differences 
in  the  handling  as  a  different  nature  required  or  neces- 
sity of  the  business  made  desirable.  Both  were  wild, 
there  is  not  any  doubt  of  that.  Jim,  the  cowboy  who 
handled  both,  was  as  wild  as  they.  Upon  that  time 
let  us  rather  linger  than  upon  a  more  degenerate  day. 
There  is  no  more  interesting  time  in  which  to  study 
the  business  of  horse  ranching  than  just  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  great  drives  to  the  North  which  marked  the 
sudden  expansion  of  the  cattle  business.  Such  study 
will  take  us  to  the  plains  of  upper  Texas,  for  here  the 
day  of  the  well-conducted  horse  ranch  began.  At  a 
time  before  the  middle  of  this  century,  before  the  civil 
war  and  before  the  railroads,  the  great  State  of  Texas 
began  to  fill  up  with  settlers  from  States  above  it. 
These  travelled  in  colonies  at  times,  the  journey  being 
made  in  a  long  cavalcade  which  was  sometimes  upon 
the  road  for  months.  From  the  old  State  of  Missis- 
sippi a  great  many  families  went  to  Texas  in  that 
strange  and  restless  American  fashion,  absolutely  leav- 
ing their  former  homes  and  pulling  up  root  and 
branch.  These  families  took  with  them  their  horses, 
their  cattle,  and  their  household  goods,  and  the  entire 
family  of  each  emigrant  went  with  him  in  his  wagons, 
accompanied  by  all  his  slaves,  for  this  was  in  the  slavery 
times.  One  of  these  great  parties  settled  at  a  lovely 
spot  near  the  head  of  a  clear  spring-fed  river  and 
founded  the  town  of  San  Marcos,  which  even  to-day 
bears  all  the  character  of  that  earlier  settlement  in  the 
names  and  families  of  its  citizens.  Here  began  some 
of  the  first  experiments  in  grading  up  the  native  Span- 
ish horses  with  the  better  blood  of  the  Northern  States, 


78  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  the  great  and 
well-conducted  horse  ranches  of  the  North  commenced 
their  systematic  work. 

One  of  the  first  horse  ranches  was  established  on 
the  Rio  Blanco  about  1849  by  Jim  Patton,  an  eccen- 
tric recluse  who  was  born  in  Pennsylvania  and  wan- 
dered down  into  that  country  and  fenced  a  few  hun- 
dred acres  which  surrounded  a  deep  spring  of  live 
water.  Patton  began  slowly,  and  at  the  time  of  the 
civil  war  had  only  a  few  hundred  head  of  horses.  The 
foundation  of  his  herd  wras  the  native  Mexican  pony, 
which  could  then  be  bought  at  two  to  five  dollars  a 
head.  Patton  had  a  very  fine  black  stallion,  for  which 
he  always  evinced  the  greatest  regard.  The  horse  was 
fed  at  the  house,  and  followed  his  master  about  like 
a  dog,  and  his  owner  made  of  it  almost  his  only  com- 
panion. In  the  rude  times  just  previous  to  the  civil 
war,  when  all  things  were  much  unsettled,  a  band  of 
raiders — scouts,  pillagers,  or  whatever  they  might  be 
called — came  in  upon  Patton's  ranch  and  said  they 
wanted  horses  for  the  Southern  army.  Patton  told 
them  to  go  to  the  horse  herd  and  help  themselves;  but 
they  demanded  the  favourite  horse,  and  this  he  told 
them  they  could  not  have.  They  insisted,  and  Patton 
made  some  temporizing  excuse,  though  he  had  resolved 
they  should  not  have  the  horse.  He  called  up  a  negro 
servant,  and  told  him  to  get  the  animal  and  lead  it  to 
the  spring  back  in  the  timber,  for  that  he  intended  to 
kill  it  himself  rather  than  allow  it  to  be  taken  by  the 
raiders.  The  negro  did  as  he  was  told,  and  Patton 
started  to  follow,  having  his  gun  ready  to  shoot  his  own 
favourite;  but  as  he  stepped  into  the  path  to  follow 
after  it  the  raiders  shot  him  in  the  back  and  killed  him. 
They  then  took  the  horse,  but  did  not  take  any  others 
of  the  herd.  Patton's  brother  came  down  from  the 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  79 

North  later  to  clear  up  his  estate,  but  the  ranch  was 
allowed  to  go  to.  pieces.  This  ended  what  was  probably 
one  of  the  very  first  of  the  attempts  at  horse  ranch- 
ing east  of  the  Eockies  on  the  cow  range.  Another 
early  and  well-known  horse  ranch  was  the  Key  brand 
ranch  of  Joe  Brown,  and  yet  another  and  more  ex- 
tensive one  was  the  C.  0.  X.  ranch,  both  of  these 
near  San  Marcos,  and  both  established  in  the  early 
part  of  the  decade  which  began  at  1850.  The  trail 
horses  of  these  outfits  were  known  from  the  Rio  Grande 
to  Abilene  in  the  days  of  the  drive. 

In  these  different  ranches  there  were  several  sires — 
fine-bred  Kentucky  horses  of  proved  blood  and  excel- 
lence— and  it  was  soon  discovered  that  the  progeny  of 

^these  made  better  cow  horses  than  the  native  horses. 

~:Th<e  grade  horse  would  weigh  perhaps  eight  hundred 
pounds  instead  of  six  hundred,  and  would  have  a  bet- 
ter turn  of  speed  and  more  strength,  though  retaining 
the  hardiness  and  staying  quality  of  the  native  stock, 
One  of  the  famous  horses  taken  from  Kentucky  to  that 
region  was  known  as  Buckskin,  and  grading  of  that 
strain  began  about  1856.  ^/By  the  time  the  days  of  the 
cattle  drives  began  there  was  well  established  in  north- 
ern Texas  a  strain  of  cow  horses  which  must  have  had 
superior  qualities,  for  they  came  to  be  sought  far  and 
near  by  outfits  going  "  up  the  trail." 

Life  in  those  early  days  was  very  free  and  wild  and 
picturesque.  It  was  long  before  the  day  of  fences,  and 
all  the  country  belonged  to  the  settlers  who  had  dis- 
covered it.  The  neighbours  were  very  far  away.  The 
horses  ranged  quite  free  and  unfenced,  as  wild  as  the 
cattle.  Horses  naturally  band  up  more  closely  than 
the  cattle,  and  this  trait  was  strengthened  by  the  habits 
of  the  stallions,  which  would  drive  off,  each  for  him- 
self, a  band  of  forty  to  seventy-five  (known  as  his 


80  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

"  menalha"  this  being  the  native  pronunciation  of  the 
Spanish  word  "  manada"  a  band  or  drove),  endeav- 
ouring always  to  steal  more  mares  from  other  bands. 
These  bands  would  come  to  feed  more  or  less  apart, 
and  each  would  localize  itself,  establishing  a  range 
upon  which  it  could  nearly  always  be  found.  The 
climate  of  that  country  did  not  offer  such  extremes 
as  that  of  the  northern  range,  and  this  in  a  man- 
ner simplified  the  work  of  ranging  the  animals.  A 
horse  never  liked  to  leave  its  native  range,  and  if 
stolen  and  taken  away  would  often  come  back,  some- 
times over  a  distance  of  more  than  two  hundred 
miles.  A  band  of  thirty-five  horses  has  been  known  to 
break  back  from  the  drive  and  return  home  over  two 
hundred  miles  in  about  twenty  days.  Much  was  left 
to  this  home  instinct  of  the  horses,  and  it  was  consid- 
ered sure  that  they  would  range  over  a  country  not 
much  more  than  twenty-five  or  forty  miles  from  where 
they  were  born,  if  the  feed  remained  good.  Fences 
were  therefore  not  needed,  for  fifty  miles  on  the  range 
is  but  a  little  way. 

The  men  of  the  horse  ranches  joined  in  the  spring 
round-up  just  as  the  cattle  men  join  in  their  round-ups. 
The  start  was  usually  made  about  the  first  week  in 
March  in  that  country,  and  the  early  search  was  made 
among  the  hills  and  broken  ground  along  the  water 
courses.  Each  ranch  sent  a  proper  proportion  of  men, 
and  these  travelled  very  light.  Each  man  had  for  his 
own  saddle  band  only  about  three  extra  horses.  The 
camp  baggage  was  all  carried  on  pack  horses.  The 
round-up  party  went  very  free  and  independent,  as  it 
needed  to  be,  for  it  should  be  remembered  that  the 
animals  to  be  gathered  were  very  much  swifter  than 
cattle,  and  at  times  harder  to  control  or  bring  to  a 
given  point  at  a  given  time.  It  was  usually  the  inten- 


82  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ning  would  ensue  before  such  a  band  would  finally  be 
surrounded  and  gotten  under  control.  Only  the  supe- 
rior bottom  of  the  Kentucky  strain  would  at  length 
succeed  in  wearing  out  these  fugitives,  though  sooner 
or  later  the  perseverance  of  the  riders  got  them  all  in. 
It  was  a  singular  fact  that  the  little  colts,,  some  not 
more  that  a  week  or  two  old,  were  the  swiftest  of  the 
band,  and  these  always  were  in  the  lead,  the  colt  usually 
running  ahead  of  its  mother. 

As  the  horses  were  picked  up  on  the  round-up 
here  and  there  over  the  country  they  were  driven  to- 
ward some  convenient  corral  or  meantime  held  under 
herd.  It  was  the  custom  in  that  country  to  corral 
the  herd  at  night  and  to  herd  it  during  the  daytime, 
three  or  four  men  being  set  apart  for  that  work.  The 
herd  thus  grew  for  some  weeks,  being  shifted  as  seemed 
necessary  until  in  perhaps  a  month  all  the  horses  of 
the  range  were  thought  to  be  gathered,  these,  of  course, 
belonging  to  various  owners.  Then  the  whole  herd 
was  rounded  up  at  some  favourable  place,  and  the 
process  of  cutting  out  began,  this  being  much  as  it  is 
in  a  cow  round-up.  The  owner's  brand  determined 
ownership,  and  the  colts  went  with  their  mothers. 
Each  man  helped  with  the  entire  herd  until  finally 
each  owner  had  his  own  horses  all  separated  from  the 
main  herd.  Then  the  round-up  party  broke  up,  and 
each  owner  drove  his  own  horses  back  to  his  own 
home  ranch.  It  might  be  toward  the  close  of  April 
when  the  horses  reached  their  home  ranch,  a  date  about 
equivalent  to  the  first  of  June  on  the  northern  range. 
The  herd  was  held  here  as  it  had  been  on  the  round- 
up in  the  big  ranch  corrals,  feeding  under  guard  dur- 
ing the  day  and  confined  in  the  corrals  at  night. 

Upon  the  arrival  at  the  ranch  of  the  season's  prod- 
uct of  horses,  the  horse  rancher  at  once  went  about 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  83 

branding  his  young  stock.  The  branding  was  all  done 
in  the  "  round  pen/'  as  a  circular  corral  was  called  in 
the  South.  This  was  an  inclosure  with  fence  walls 
ten  or  twelve  feet  in  height,  strongly  built,  and,  as  the 
name  indicated,  of  circular  form.  A  horse  when  fright- 
ened is  far  worse  than  a  steer,  and  if  any  angles  were 
left  in  the  corral  it  might  result  in  injury  to  the  horses, 
which  when  pursued  by  the  ropers  were  sometimes 
very  wild  in  their  attempts  at  escape.  A  little  bunch 
of  fifteen  or  twenty  horses  were  driven  into  the  round 
pen  at  once,  and  then  the  ropers  went  to  work.  These, 
of  course,  were  cowboys  of  the  same  sort  as  those  of 
the  cattle  ranches.  It  may  have  been  upon  a  horse 
ranch  that  our  foreman  Jim  had  his  first  education  as 
a  roper,  under  the  tutelage  of  some  swarthy  Mexican 
of  high  straw  hat  and  kerchief  bound  about  his  fore- 
head, who  perhaps  made  a  prominent  figure  in  the 
round  pen  at  the  horse  ranch  when  the  spring  branding 
was  in  progress.  It  was  Jim,  or  Manuel,  or  Jose  who 
dashed  after  the  flying  horses  as  they  sped  about  the 
smooth  walls,  his  hide  lariat  hissing  about  his  head 
with  the  turn  of  his  wrist  as  he  rode.  With  the  swoop 
of  the  rope  and  its  louder  hiss  as  it  cut  through  the 
air  even  against  the  sharpest  wind,  some  luckless  little 
colt  was  sure  to  get  its  first  lesson  in  the  domination 
of  mankind.  The  roper  caught  the  colt  by  the  fore 
feet,  not  by  the  hind  feet  as  the  calves  are  usually 
roped,  and  of  course  at  the  instant  the  rope  tightened 
the  colt  went  head  over  heels  on  the  ground:  lesson 
No.  1  of  the  cow  pony,  which  is  not  to  "  run  against 
rope." 

At  once  the  colt  was  dragged  to  the  gate  of  the 
round  pen,  where  just  outside  a  fire  was  burning 
and  an  iron  glowing  for  his  tender  hide.  A  hissing 
of  hair  and  a  plaintive  scream  from  the  colt  and  it  was 


84:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

all  over,  and  another  animal  had  become  the  property 
of  the  ranch.  Perhaps  a  dozen  and  a  half  of  colts 
would  be  branded  and  marked  in  an  hour,  and  then 
another  bunch  was  brought  in  from  the  big  corral. 
Cattle  were  not  customarily  branded  in  the  corral  but 
upon  the  range,  while  horses  were  always  taken  to  the 
corrals  for  this  work.  After  the  branding  the  colts 
had  little  attention  except  now  and  then  a  rude  ex- 
amination to  see  that  worms  had  not  gotten  into  the 
burned  spot  on  the  shoulder  or  hip.  The  brand  mark 
was  sore  for  a  week  or  so,  but  in  about  fifteen  days 
it  would  heal  and  peel  off  and  give  no  further  incon- 
venience. At  the  same  time  as  the  branding  of  colts 
progressed  the  yearlings  and  two-year-olds  received 
such  attention  as  seemed  necessary,  and  the  herd  was 
looked  over  for  any  stock  which  for  any  reason  it  was 
desired  to  hold  out.  By  the  end  of  April  or  middle 
of  May  the  horse  rancher  could  tell  what  had  been  his 
year's  profits  or  losses  in  stock. 

The  loss  of  horses  on  the  Southern  ranges  was 
mainly  from  scarcity  of  water  or  through  drought  that 
cut  down  the  feed  too  closely.  Some  animals  would 
be  bogged  down  and  lost  in  that  way.  The  "brand 
blotters  "  and  horse  thieves  would  get  a  few,  and  the 
wolves  and  cougars  would  get  a  few  colts.  Lastly, 
the  wild  mustangs  might  run  off  a  number  of  the  herd. 
A  great  many  persons  think  that  all  Texas  ponies  were 
"  mustangs,"  and  so  call  them,  but  the  rancher  made 
a  sharp  distinction  between  his  stock  and  these  wild 
horses  of  the  plains.  For  years  they  made  one  of  the 
menaces  of  his  industry,  and  did  not  all  disappear  from 
the  range  until  as  late  as  1878  or  1880.  Indeed,  even 
in  1896  a  few  bands  of  mustangs  were  still  running 
in  the  Panhandle  country  of  Texas.  These  are  the 
increase  of  a  few  individuals  left  from  the  old  horse- 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  85 

hunting  days.  The  Southern  rancher  believed  these 
horses  to  be  of  a  stock  distinct  from  his  own,  and 
thought  they  were  descendants  of  the  wild  horses 
which  sprang  from  the  horses  turned  loose  upon  the 
plains  by  the  Spanish  Government.  It  is  certain 
that  these  were  swifter  and  warier  than  the  range 
horses,  for  no  cowboy  could  ever  round  up  a  band  of 
mustangs,  no  matter  how  hard  he  rode.  The  leader 
of  a  band  of  these  wild  horses  was  always  a  stallion 
of  great  cunning  and  speed,  often  of  great  size  and 
beauty.  It  was  useless  to  try  to  trap  the  mustangs 
in  any  way,  and  they  seemed  to  have  a  preternatural 
shrewdness  at  suspecting  and  foiling  any  effort  made 
for  their  inveiglement  into  the  toils.  Once  a  party 
of  cowmen  worked  all  night  to  lay  a  corral  fence 
back  in  a  mountain  pass  through  which  a  band  of  these 
wild  horses  were  accustomed  to  run  whenever  they 
were  pursued.  The  next  day  they  were  started  again, 
and  took  their  usual  course  till  they  came  opposite  the 
mouth  of  the  narrow  pass,  when  without  hesitation  they 
ran  on  by  and  did  not  enter  the  pass,  thus  breaking 
a  custom  which  they  had  invariably  followed  up  to 
that  day,  though  the  new  corral  was  built  far  back 
from  their  sight  in  the  narrowest  part  of  the  pass. 
These  wild  horses  could  not  be  run  down  by  any 
horses  ever  brought  upon  the  range.  They  were  some- 
times "  walked  down  "  by  parties  of  horse  hunters — a 
wild,  half-civilized  breed  of  individuals,  the  fascination 
of  whose  singular  calling  was  something  never  shaken 
off.  These  men  would  take  turns  in  following  a  herd 
of  mustangs  day  and  night  for  perhaps  six  or  eight 
days,  allowing  them  not  a  moment's  rest,  until  the 
animals  would  become  entirely  worn  out  and  could  be 
readily  approached  closely  enough  for  roping.  A  few 
of  them  were  at  times  taken  by  the  singular  method 


86  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

known  as  "  creasing/'  which  killed  a  dozen  horses  to 
every  one  ever  taken  alive.  The  hunter  who  wished 
to  crease  a  wild  horse  stalked  it  as  he  would  game  until 
close  enough  for  a  sure  shot.  He  then  sought  to  plant 
a  rifle  ball  through  the  cartilage  of  the  top  of  the 
neck,  just  above  the  spinal  processes.  Such  a  shot 
could  sometimes  be  made  in  such  way  that  the  horse 
would  fall  to  the  earth  stunned,  but  would  afterward 
recover  and  be  uninjured;  but  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases  the  horse  was  missed  or  killed  outright. 

At  one  time  there  was  a  celebrated  white  stallion  in 
charge  of  a  band  of  mustangs  which  ranged  near  the 
Big  Thicket  of  the  Blanco,  and  on  this  horse  a  certain 
famous  mustang  hunter,  a  Mexican  by  name  of  Soyez, 
had  long  set  his  heart.  He  sought  many  times  to  snare 
or  trap  the  creature,  but  could  not  do  so,  and  at  length 
tried  to  crease  it.  Secreting  himself  in  a  tree  near  a 
water  hole  where  the  band  watered,  Soyez  waited  until 
his  quarry  came  down  to  water,  himself  not  scented 
because  he  was  above  the  ground  and  at  a  little  distance 
from  the  water.  He  aimed  to  strike  the  stallion  just 
upon  the  crest,  but,  "with  Mexican  skill,  shot  it  instead 
square  through  the  head.  Years  afterward  Soyez  would 
nearly  weep  when  telling  of  his  chagrin  and  sorrow 
at  this  unfortunate  ending  of  his  quest.  This  stallion 
was  milk-white,  except  for  a  black  forehead  and  black 
ears.  In  the  year  1856  there  was  another  one  of  these 
famous  wild  stallions  which  ranged  in  somewhat  the 
same  country.  This  horse  was  a  pacer,  and  could  never 
be  urged  into  a  gallop  by  any  means.  When  pursued, 
he  would  always  forsake  the  main  herd  and  strike  off 
by  himself,  taking  up  a  gait  which  soon  shook  off 
pursuit.  He  was  a  grand  black  horse,  and  was  much 
coveted  by  all  the  ranch  men  and  their  cowboys,  and 
very  often  these  would  make  up  hunts  for  him,  taking 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  87 

stands  along  his  known  runways.  But  though  this 
horse  was  chased  for  over  ten  miles  by  six  mounted 
men  in  turn,  he  was  never  turned  and  never  reached 
within  roping  distance  by  any  rider.  At  length  he  was 
chased  so  much  that  he  forsook  his  range  and  went 
over  to  a  spot  lower  down  on  the  Blanco.  For  two 
years  word  came  from  that  country  that  he  was  being 
pursued  by  the  cowmen  of  that  country,  but  he  was 
never  taken  and  at  length  seems  to  have  disappeared 
from  the  country  altogether,  perhaps  at  the  hand  of 
another  ambitious  creaser.  These  wild  mustangs  often 
ran  off  the  stock  of  the  ranch  men,  and  even  mules 
sometimes  joined  these  wild  bands.  The  ranch  men 
hated  the  mustangs  on  this  account,  and  were  not  averse 
to  the  work  of  the  horse  hunters.  At  times  choleric 
cowboys  who  had  pursued  such  a  wild  band  of  plains 
horses  dismounted  and  in  wrath  opened  fire  from  their 
rifles  upon  the  fleeing  herd,  sometimes  killing  several 
of  the  mustangs  from  no  motive  except  that  of  wanton- 
ness or  anger. 

These  several  perils  of  the  horse  range  having 
been  evaded  or  overcome,  the  horse  rancher  finds  him- 
self, let  us  say,  at  the  middle  of  the  month  of  May  with 
several  hundreds  of  horses  on  his  hands.  These  are 
not  "  mustangs,"  and  not  all  "  bronchos,"  and  not  all 
pure-bred  Texas  stock.  Some  of  them  are  pure  Texas 
or  Spanish,  and  some  are  grades.  All  are  wild  as  deer, 
and  every  one  of  them  will  "  pitch  "  as  sure  as  that 
he  will  breathe,  for  it  is  said  that  no  horse  was  ever 
born  on  Texas  soil  which  would  not  buck  at  some 
time  or  other  of  his  career.  The  rancher  sometimes 
sold  his  saddle  stock  as  it  stood,  untrained  and  un- 
tamed, but  the  regular  horse  ranchers  usually  sold  noth- 
ing but  broken  horses,  as  they  got  a  better  price  for 
that  class  of  stock.  The  process  of  breaking  the  young 


88  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

horses  for  the  saddle  occupied  the  great  part  of  the 
entire  summer  after  the  round-up  and  the  branding, 
and  this  branch  of  the  work  was  one  of  the  most  pic- 
turesque and  exciting  phases  of  life  on  the  cattle  range. 
No  better  riders  were  ever  turned  out  than  those  who 
were  raised  on  or  near  the  horse  ranches,  for  there  the 
business  of  riding  wild  horses  went  on  for  nearly  half 
the  year. 

The  differentiation  of  the  cattle  trade  has  made 
horse  breaking  a  trade  of  itself  in  much  of  the  cow 
country,  but  at  first  the  cowboys  of  each  ranch  usually 
did  the  breaking  for  the  ranch,  with  such  help  as 
might  come  through  the  services  of  some  neighbouring 
rider  of  exceptional  gifts  at  horse  breaking.  Such 
specially  gifted  men  gradually  became  a  class  of  them- 
selves, known  all  over  the  range  as  "  broncho  busters," 
and  they  took  to  the  hazardous  trade  of  horse  breaking 
as  a  steady  business,  usually  working  under  contract, 
and  "busting"  horses  at  so  much  a  head  for  all  the 
big  ranches  having  unbroken  stock  on  hand.  The 
name  given  this  process  of  breaking  is  suggestive  and 
not  inaccurate.  A  horse  was  considered  "  busted  "  after 
he  had  been  ridden  two  or  three  times  under  the  hand 
of  iron  and  the  heel  of  steel.  Out  of  such  an  ordeal 
the  horse  came  with  a  temper  perhaps  ruined  for  life, 
and  with  a  permanent  grudge  against  all  things  human. 
It  would  really  never  be  cured  entirely  of  the  habit  of 
bucking,  and  was  never  absolutely  safe  unless  ridden 
to  the  point  of  fatigue.  Some  of  the  best  cow  horses 
on  a  ranch  will  always  buck  when  first  mounted  after 
a  long  rest,  and  some  need  a  little  preliminary  train- 
ing every  time  they  are  mounted.  These  animals  prob- 
ably had  their  first  touch  of  the  saddle  at  the  fjontk1 
hands  of  the  "  buster,"  who  got  four  or  five  dollars  a 
head  for  proving  ocularly  that  such  and  such  a  horse 


THE  COWBOY'S  HOKSE.  89 

could  actually  be  mounted  and  ridden  without  death 
to  either  horse  or  man.  Sometimes  the  event  was  not 
thus  for  either  the  horse  or  the  man.  Horses  were  at 
times  killed  in  the  process  of  "  busting,"  and  very  often 
the  "  buster  "  himself  was  the  victim.  The  most  suc- 
cessful of  these  men,  who  came  of  the  hardiest  and 
most  daring  of  the  range  riders,  rarely  lasted  more  than 
a  few  years  in  the  business.  Sometimes  their  lungs 
were  torn  loose  by  the  violent  jolting  of  the  stiff-legged 
bounds  of  the  wild  beasts  they  rode,  and  many  busters 
would  spit  blood  after  a  few  months  at  their  calling. 
Injury  in  the  saddle  at  some  stage  of  this  wild  riding 
was  almost  a  certainty,  and  falls  were  a  matter  of 
course.  A  broken  leg  or  arm  was  a  light  calamity, 
accepted  philosophically  with  the  feeling  that  it  might 
have  been  much  worse.  The  life  of  the  soldier  en- 
gaged in  actual  war  is  far  safer  than  that  of  the  broncho 
buster.  There  is  no  wilder  or  more  exciting  scene  than 
the  first  riding  of  one  of  these  wild  range  horses.  It 
is  a  battle  of  man  against  brute,  and  of  a  quality  to 
make  the  heart  of  a  novice  stand  still  in  terror.  Yet 
upon  the  range  this  is  one  of  the  necessities,  and  those 
who  engage  in  this  business  go  about  it  methodically 
and  steadily,  probably  with  no  thought  that  they  are 
doing  anything  extraordinary,  because  they  have  never 
done  anything  else. 

Between  the  more  modern  methods,  such  as  one 
may  see  practised  on  Northern  ranches  to-day,  and  the 
methods  of  the  earlier  Southern  ranches  there  is  some- 
thing of  a  distinction.  On  a  Northern  horse  ranch, 
for  instance,  which  sells  sixty  or  eighty  horses  a  year, 
the  breaking  is  commonly  done  by  a  "  contract  buster." 
Perhaps  thirty  or  forty  horses  are  gathered  in  the  big 
corral  and  are  turned  one  by  one  into  the  small  round 
corral,  which  has  a  snubbing  post  in  the  middle.  Two 


90  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

or  three  men  rope  the  horse  by  the  fore  feet  and  throw 
him,  using  the  snubbing  post  if  necessary.  He  is  then 
quickly  tied  up  and  the  "  hackamore,"  which  is  pro- 
vided with  a  blind  already  fastened  to  it,  is  put  on  his 
head.  The  blind  is  now  slipped  down  over  the  horse's 
eyes,  and  he  is  allowed  to  stand  up.  The  reins  of  the 
hackamore  are  led  back,  and  the  saddle  is  put  on  and 
cinched  up.  Sometimes  the  stirrups  are  tied  together, 
but  usually  not,  the  buster  perhaps  being  too  proud  to 
take  advantage  of  this  aid  to  easy  riding,  though  it  would 
perhaps  save  him  some  fatigue  or  danger.  The  blind 
is  now  lifted  a  little  and  the  horse  is  led  out,  the  blind 
then  being  slipped  down  again.  Now  the  buster  comes 
to  the  horse  and  mounts  him,  the  beast  usually  stand- 
ing quietly  and  cowering  in  its  supposed  helpless  blind- 
ness. Two  other  men,  sometimes  known  in  these  days 
of  modern  ranching  as  "  hazers,"  now  mount  and  ride 
up  with  their  quirts  in  hand  ready  to  drive  on  the 
horse  that  is  to  be  broken.  When  all  is  ready  the 
buster  leans  forward  from  his  seat,  lifts  the  blind,  and 
sets  whip  and  spur  to  the  horse,  the  assistants  mean- 
time yelling,  waving  their  hats,  and  pounding  with 
their  quirts.  The  horse  so  beset  is  apt  to  be  "  bad  "  for 
a  time,  but  is  likely  to  start  away  from  sheer  fright, 
and  as  soon  as  he  leads  off  the  assistants  leave  him,  and 
the  buster  "  rides  it  out/5  perhaps  making  a  run  of 
two  or  three  miles,  and  then  gradually  getting  back  to 
the  corral  again.  Here  the  horse  is  again  blinded,  and 
his  saddle  and  hackamore  are  taken  off.  He  is  then 
turned  into  a  separate  corral,  as  a  horse  that  has  been 
"  ridden."  Another  horse  is  then  prepared  for  the 
buster.  The  latter  may  ride  five  or  six  horses  in  a 
day,  all  of  these  operations  of  course  being  repeated 
until  each  animal  has  been  reduced  to  what  seems  near 
enough  to  the  Western  idea  of  docility. 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  91 

In  the  early  days  of  ranching  in  the  Southwest  the 
main  ideas  of  horse  breaking  were  much  the  same  as 
above  described,  but  the  methods  employed  varied  in 
some  particulars.  As  those  were  the  earliest  days,  they 
are  perhaps  the  most  interesting,  and  offer  the  best  field 
for  the  examination  of  this  essential  phase  of  ranch 
work. 

Some  of  the  early  Southern  busters  were  negroes, 
and  very  good  breakers  they  made.  Many  were  Mexi- 
cans, whose  cruelty  and  roughness  were  practically  cer- 
tain to  ruin  the  disposition  of  any  horse,  and  who  soon 
came  into  disrepute  with  American  ranchers.  Others 
were  rough  riders  from  the  cowboy  ranks,  who  had 
been  riders  from  their  youth  and  feared  no  horse  that 
ever  stood  on  earth.  Many  of  them  were  graduated 
from  the  horse  ranches  where  cow  horses  were  bred 
and  broken  as  a  business.  It  is  perhaps  in  such  a 
school  that  our  foreman  Jim  learned  his  splendid  horse- 
manship, away  back  in  the  early  days.  In  no  calling 
known  to  man  shall  we  find  more  of  rugged,  stern, 
and  masterly  quality  demanded  than  was  asked  in  this 
original  school  of  the  cowboy.  In  no  scene  of  civilized 
life  shall  we  find  more  vivid  and  animated  interest  and 
action  than  made  common  features  about  the  home 
ranch  at  the  time  horse  breaking  was  going  on. 

A  horse  ranch  of  average  size  would  employ  from 
six  to  ten  men  for  the  summer  breaking  season,  and 
these  would  be  busy  from  the  middle  of  May  till  the 
end  of  summer.  It  took  about  a  week  to  break  a  horse, 
and  each  breaker  would  usually  handle  two  horses  at 
the  same  time,  riding  them  a  part  of  the  day  each. 
After  the  first  work  was  done,  others  might  continue 
the  handling  of  the  horse  through  several  weeks  more, 
but  about  six  days  would  usually  fit  a  horse  for  the 
saddle  so  that  a  good  rider  could  ride  it;  and  none  but 


92  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

good  riders  had  any  business  about  the  cow  country. 
For  this  sort  of  work  the  cowboys  were  usually  paid 
about  twenty  to  forty  dollars  a  month,  according  to  their 
value.  Some  Mexicans  were  employed,  but  they  were  not 
so  much  valued.  Of  course,  there  were  always  some 
of  the  young  men  about  the  ranch  who  were  breaking 
their  own  saddle  horses  for  themselves.  Such  horses 
were  not  run  with  the  band,  but  usually  kept  up  about 
the  house.  It  was  a  notorious  fact  that  one  of  the 
"  pet  horses  "  was  sure  to  be  about  the  worst  case  of 
the  lot  when  it  came  to  riding  it,  especially  if  it  had 
been  allowed  to  go  late  in  life  before  it  was  ridden. 

Any  visitor  to  a  cow  ranch  has  seen  the  men  at 
work  among  the  horse  herd,  and  has  noticed  how 
quickly  a  horse  will  stop  as  soon  as  it  feels  the  rope 
touch  it,  even  though  it  may  perhaps  not  be  caught  by 
the  noose  at  all.  This  submission  to  the  magic  of  the 
rope  is  a  cardinal  principle  in  that  horse's  ideas  of 
common  sense.  He  bears  deep  within  his  mind  the 
early  lessons  of  his  youth.  The  wildest  broncho  is  very 
apt  to  cool  down  when  he  feels  the  iron  grip  of  the 
rope.  The  first  lesson  of  the  rope  he  receives,  as  above 
mentioned,  when  a  brawny  cow  puncher  circles  both 
his  fore  legs  with  a  noose  of  this  dreaded  rope,  throws 
him  flat  with  a  turn  of  the  wrist,  and  hales  him  on  his 
side  through  the  dust  away  from  his  mother's  side  to 
the  spot  where  the  fiery  iron  is  waiting.  From  that 
instant  the  colt  hates  man  and  all  his  doing.  He  hates 
the  rope.  He  resolves  that  if  ever  he  gets  a  fair  chance 
he  will  break  that  rope  into  a  thousand  fragments. 
He  is  a  couple  of  seasons  older  and  bigger  and  stronger 
when  he  is  at  length  driven  into  the  round  pen  some 
fresh  spring  morning,  so  strong,  he  is  sure,  that  he  can 
rend  any  rope.  He  breaks  into  a  run  about  the  wall 
of  the  corral,  but  Jim,  the  lean  and  sinewy  rider  on 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  93 

the  older  cow  horse.,  follows,  about  his  head  curling  al- 
ways that  unpleasant  snakelike  thing  the  pony  remem- 
bers and  has  hated  from  his  babyhood.  The  rope  comes 
at  him  with  a  wide  curling  sweep,  and,  in  spite  of  his 
tossing  and  plunging,  settles  fair  about  his  neck  or 
fore  feet.  It  tightens  with  a  jerk.  The  old  horse  which 
Jim  is  riding  stops  in  his  stride  and  falls  back,  brac- 
ing his  fore  legs  firmly.  The  young  wild  horse  which 
was  determined  to  break  the  rope  finds  himself  upside 
down,  the  rope  perhaps  choking  the  life  out  of  him. 
He  has  had  lesson  No.  2. 

Jim,  the  cowpuncher  and  horse  breaker,  calmly 
waits  till  the  young  horse's  eyes  nearly  start  out  of  his 
head,  and  then  signs  to  his  assistants,  who  loosen  the 
rope  just  in  time  to  save  the  pony's  life.  The  latter  is 
furious  at  the  indignity  he  has  suffered,  and  as  soon 
as  he  can  breathe  begins  to  plunge  and  kick  and  rear, 
throwing  himself  quite  over  in  his  struggles.  Yet 
quietly  he  is  pulled  up,  pulled  down,  pulled  along, 
until  he  is  ready  for  another  lesson. 

Upon  the  head  of  the  horse  now  ready  for  break- 
ing there  is  slipped  a  curious  bitless  bridle,  or  halter, 
of  strands  of  rope,  very  strong  and  capable  of  being 
so  arranged  that  too  much  pulling  on  it  will  close  it 
fast  upon  a  pony's  nose  and  make  the  act  of  breathing 
difficult.  This  halter  is  called  a  "hackamore,"  and 
of  course  it  was  the  invention  of  the  Spaniard.  The 
pony  when  put  on  the  hackamore  is  staked  out  on  the 
open  ground  on  a  long  "  stake  rope."  He  is  left  alone 
for  awhile  here,  and  soon  learns  his  next  lesson.  Re- 
solved again  in  his  heart  to  break  this  hated  rope, 
he  runs  full  speed  to  the  end  of  it,  and  there  comes 
to  a  halt  with  his  heels  high  in  the  air  and  his  neck 
perhaps  doubled  under  him.  If  his  neck  happens 
to  be  broken  it  makes  no  difference,  for  there  are 


94  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

other  ponies  just  as  good,  plenty  of  them.  If  his 
neck  is  not  broken,  he  gets  up  and  does  it  over  again, 
and  perhaps  again.  Then  he  shakes  his  head  and 
thinks  it  over.  His  next  act  will  be  to  get  himself 
tied  up  thoroughly  in  the  coils  of  the  rope,  trip- 
ping himself,  throwing  himself,  and  burning  his  heels 
terribly  on  the  harsh  fibre  of  the  rope.  In  this  he  is 
allowed  to  follow  his  own  sweet  will,  because  he  is 
not  intended  to  be  used  on  Broadway,  and  a  little  skin 
missing  here  or  there  constitutes  no  drawback  for  the 
purposes  of  the  range.  The  pony  cuts  and  bruises 
himself  and  falls  down,  and  no  doubt  reviles  and  swears 
in  Spanish,  but  it  does  no  good,  except  that  ever  there 
grows  in  his  mind  a  vast  and  vaster  respect  for  this 
relentless  thing,  this  rope  which  has  him  fast. 

And  then  Jim  comes  along  after  a  while,  with  a  rope 
or  blanket  or  something  of  the  sort,  and  begins  to  whip 
it  over  the  back  of  the  pony,  driving  the  latter  half 
crazy  with  fright,  for  never  has  he  had  such  a  thing 
near  him  before.  The  pony  cringes  and  plunges,  but 
Jim  lays  a  hard  hand  upon  the  hackamore  and  draws 
him  into  submission  and  into  a  personal  contact  re- 
sented with  all  the  soul  of  the  fiery  little  creature  thus 
robbed  of  his  loved  liberty.  A  second  man  comes  up 
on  the  other  side  of  the  pony  and  lays  hands  upon  him. 
In  a  twinkling  a  red  kerchief  is  slipped  across  his  face 
and  tied  fast  to  the  side  strands  of  the  hackamore. 
Smitten  with  blindness,  the  pony  cowers  and  is  motion- 
less and  dumb.  The  end  of  the  world  for  him  has 
come,  for  never  in  all  his  wild  life  did  he  ere  this  fail 
to  see  the  light  of  day  or  the  half  light  of  night,  which 
served  him  full  as  well.  Surely,  thinks  the  pony,  all 
now  is  over,  and  the  end  has  come.  He  shrinks  and 
does  not  resist  the  hand  laid  upon  his  muzzle,  the  other 
hand  laid  upon  his  ear,  the  twist  given  to  his  head, 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  95 

the  whipping  of  the  blanket  over  and  on  his  back, 
touching  him  where  never  any  object  has  touched  be- 
fore. But  with  a  jerk  he  may  perhaps  throw  off  the 
blinder  of  the  handkerchief  and  begin  instinctively 
the  wild  stiff-legged  bucking  of  his  breed.  "  He's 
shore  bronch',"  says  Jim.  "  You'll  have  to  hold  his 
head  closter."  Then  the  hackamore  tightens  again, 
and  the  hands  lay  hold  of  the  ears  and  the  trembling 
muzzle  again,  and — and  then,  before  the  frightened 
and  frenzied  pony  has  had  time  to  dread  or  suspect 
anything  further,  there  comes  a  rattle  and  a  creak,  and 
there  falls  with  an  awful  thud  and  crash  upon  his 
back  a  vast  thing  the  like  of  which  he  had  never 
dreamed  for  himself,  though  he  has  seen  it  upon  the 
tamed  slaves  which  aided  in  his  own  undoing.  The 
saddle  has  been  thrown  upon  him.  Unless  closely 
blindfolded,  he  promptly  bucks  it  off  again,  wildly 
kicking  into  the  bargain,  his  head  tossed  high  with 
terror  and  hatred,  his  legs  straining  back  from  the 
iron  hands  that  hold  him. 

But  the  iron  hands  do  not  relax.  They  hold  like 
the  hands  of  fate.  The  saddle  is  bucked  off  time  and 
again,  a  dozen  times,  but  it  comes  back  again  with  the 
thud  and  crash,  and  someway  it  does  not  actually  kill, 
after  all.  The  pony  stops  to  think  about  it.  Jim,  who 
has  been  waiting  for  this  moment  of  thought,  cau- 
tiously reaches  under  the  pony  with  a  long  crooked  stick 
to  the  girth  that  hangs  upon  the  farther  side.  Slowly 
and  quietly  he  pulls  this  girth  to  him,  talking  to  the 
pony  the  while.  Slowly  and  quietly  he  puts  the  end  of 
the  girth  through  the  iron  ring  or  buckle.  Then,  quiet- 
ly, slowly,  Jim  gets  out  to  the  end  of  the  "  cinch  " 
as  far  as  he  can,  because  he  knows  what  is  going 
to  happen.  Commonly  the  girth  of  the  breaking 
saddle  has  a  big  buckle  with  a  tongue  which  will 


96  THE  STOIIY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

quickly  engage  in  the  holes  punched  through  the  girth. 
Taking  the  cinch  strap  firmly  in  his  hands,  Jim  gives  a 
sudden  jerk  backward  and  upward,  and  the  pony  feels 
an  awful  grip  of  something  tightened  about  his  body 
where  never  such  a  thing  had  been  felt  before.  At  once., 
wild  and  demonlike  in  his  rage  and  terror  at  such  in- 
dignities, he  falls  wildly  to  bucking  again;  but  now 
Jim  is  close  up  at  his  side,  pulling  the  harder  at  the 
cinch,  which  does  not  slip  but  holds  its  own.  The  men 
at  the  pony's  head  swing  down  and  twist  his  head 
askew.  The  hackamore  tightens,  the  saddle  holds. 
Tighter  and  tighter  the  girth  goes,  and  at  length  the 
trembling  beast  feels  he  must  endure  this  also.  Pant- 
ing and  red-eyed,  courageous  and  full  of  fight  still, 
he  braces  his  feet  apart  and  stands  so,  trembling  with 
anger  and  shame.  And  Jim  quietly  pokes  another 
stick  under  and  gets  hold  of  another  girth,  the  hind 
cinch  ("  flank  girth,"  it  is  called  in  the  South),  and  soon 
the  pony  feels  upon  his  stomach  the  grip  of  this  hairy, 
hateful  thing,  which  all  his  life  he  never  ceases  to  re- 
sent, because  it  cuts  off  his  lung  room  and  makes  him 
feel  uncomfortable  with  its  sinking  into  the  soft  part 
of  a  pony's  anatomy,  which  ought  to  be  respected  even 
by  a  cowpuncher,  but  isn't.  The  pony  rebels  again 
and  viciously  at  this  flank  girth,  but  it  does  110  good. 
The  great  saddle  stays  with  him. 

And  now  Jim,  with  his  eves  gleaming  a  little  and 
his  jaws  set  hard  together,  slips  up  to  the  side  of  the 
panting  pony,  who  stands  with  his  head  down,  his 
legs  apart,  his  eyes  bloodshot,  flinging  his  head  from 
side  to  side  now  and  again  in  a  wild  effort  to  break 
away  and  win  back  that  freedom  for  which  his  heart 
is  sobbing.  Jim  puts  a  cautious  foot  against  the  stir- 
rup. The  pony  whirls  away  and  glares  at  him.  He 
realizes  now  what  is  the  purpose  of  these  enemies.  Jim 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  97 

speaks  in  low  and  soothing  tones  to  him,  but  calls  him 
perhaps  by  some  such  name  as,  "  You  d — d  black  devil, 
you  hoi'  on  a  minute,  kain't  ye?  Whoa,  bronch'I  " 
Again  and  again  Jim  seeks  a  place  with  his  left  foot. 
He  has  now  gathered  up  into  a  coil  the  long  stake 
rope,  and  this  he  holds  in  his  left  hand  or  ties  with 
a  half  turn  at  the  saddle  horn.  He  knows  there  may 
be  a  severance  of  the  personal  relations  of  himself 
and  the  pony,  and  if  so  the  rope  will  be  needed  to  re- 
establish them.  At  last  Jim  makes  a  swift  run,  a  bound 
and  a  spring  all  in  one.  Before  the  pony  knows  how 
it  has  happened  he  feels  upon  his  back  a  horrible 
crushing  weight.  He  feels  his  side  half  crushed  in 
by  the  grip  of  a  long  pair  of  human  legs.  He  feels  his 
head  "  turned  loose."  He  hears  a  long  keen  yell  from 
a  dozen  throats  about  him,  answered  by  a  similar  shrill 
yell,  not  of  fear  but  of  confidence,  above  him  from 
this  creature  which  is  crushing  down  his  back,  break- 
ing in  his  sides.  All  the  hate,  the  terror,  the  rage,  the 
fear,  the  viciousness,  the  courage  of  this  undaunted 
wild  beast  now  become  blended  into  a  mad,  unreason- 
ing rage.  He  has  fought  the  wolves,  this  pony,  and 
is  afraid  of  nothing.  He  will  unseat  this  demon  above 
him,  he  will  kill  him  as  he  did  the  wolves;  he  will 
trample  him  into  the  dirt  of  the  plains.  Down  goes 
the  pony's  head  and  into  the  air  he  goes  in  a  wild, 
serio-comic  series  of  spectacular  stiff-legged  antics. 
His  nose  between  his  knees,  he  bounds  from  the  ground 
with  all  four  feet,  and  comes  down  again  with  all  legs 
set  and  braced,  only  to  go  into  the  air  again  and  again. 
He  "  pitches  a-plungin' >:  —that  is,  jumping  forward  as 
he  bucks,  perhaps  going  six  hundred  yards  before  he 
stops  for  lack  of  wind.  Or  he  may  stand  his  ground 
and  pitch.  He  may  go  -up  and  down,  fore  and  aft,  in 
turn,  or  he  may  pitch  first  on  one  side  and  then  the 


98  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

other,  letting  his  shoulders  alternately  jerk  up  and 
droop  down  almost  to  the  ground — a  very  nasty  sort 
of  thing  to  sit  through.  He  may  spring  clear  up  into 
the  air  and  come  down  headed  in  the  direction  oppo- 
site to  that  he  originally  occupied,  or  he  may  "  pitch 
fence  cornered,"  or  in  a  zigzag  line  as  he  goes  on, 
bounding  like  a  great  ball  from  corner  to  corner  of 
his  rail-fence  course  of  flight.  The  face  of  Jim  may 
grow  a  little  pale,  his  hand  that  pulls  upon  the  hacka- 
more  may  tremble  a  bit,  and  the  arm  that  lashes  the 
pony  with  the  quirt  may  be  a  little  weary,  but  still  his 
legs  hold  their  place,  and  his  body,  apparently  loose 
and  swaying  easily  from  the  waist  up,  keeps  upright 
above  the  saddle.  Jim  knows  this  must  be  ridden 
out. 

The  pony  soon  exhausts  himself  with  his  rage. 
His  breath  comes  short.  He  stops.  The  legs  of  the 
rider  relax  a  trifle,  but  the  eye  does  not.  With  a  re- 
newal of  the  wild  screams  or  "  bawling  "  with  which 
he  has  punctuated  his  previous  bucking  performance 
the  pony  springs  forward  again  at  speed.  He  stops 
short  with  head  down,  expecting  to  throw  the  rider  for- 
ward from  the  saddle.  The  rider  remains  seated,  per- 
haps jarred  and  hurt,  but  still  in  the  saddle.  Then  the 
pony  rears  up  on  his  hind  feet.  The  cowpuncher 
steps  off  with  one  foot,  keenly  watching  to  see  whether 
the  broncho  is  going  over  backward  or  going  to  "  come 
down  in  front,"  and  go  on  with  his  performance  again. 
If  he  goes  on,  the  rider  is  in  the  saddle  as  soon  as  the 
horse's  feet  are  on  the  ground.  If  the  pony  throws 
himself  over  backward,  as  very  likely  he  will,  the  rider 
does  not  get  caught — at  least,  not  always  caught — but 
slips  from  the  saddle,  jerking  up  the  pony's  head  sharp- 
ly from  the  ground.  He  quickly  puts  his  foot  on  the 
horn  of  the  saddle,  and  there  is  the  wild  horse  flat  on 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  99 

the  ground  and  absolutely  helpless,  trussed  up  by  the 
bridle  and  held  down  by  the  foot  at  the  saddle  horn. 
If  the  horse  could  get  his  head  to  the  ground  he  would 
have  a  leverage,  and  could  break  away  and  get  up,  but 
Jim  is  careful  that  he  shall  not  get  his  head  down. 
Meantime  he  "  quirts  him  a-plenty/'  He  does  not  talk 
soothingly  now.  He  wants  this  pony  to  know  that  it 
is  better  to  keep  his  feet  on  the  ground  than  to  ac- 
quire the  habit  of  travelling  on  his  back  or  on  his  hind 
feet.  At  last  Jim  lets  the  pony  up,  and,  much  to  the 
surprise  of  the  latter,  the  rider  is  someway  again  in 
the  saddle. 

Now  the  pony  stands  quiet,  stubborn,  with  his  head 
down,  grunting  at  the  stroke  of  the  long  rowelled  spurs 
which  strike  his  sides.  At  once  he  bounds  forward 
again  wildly,  repeating  his  former  devices  at  accom- 
plishing the  undoing  of  the  rider,  whom  he  now  begins 
to  fear  and  dread  as  well  as  hate.  The  latter  is  im- 
movable in  purpose,  relentless  of  hand  and  limb.  All 
this  time  he  is  riding  without  a  bridle  bit,  depending 
only  on  the  hackamore,  which  allows  the  horse  much 
more  freedom  to  show  his  repertory  of  feats  than  does 
the  savage  Spanish  bit.  The  pony  in  time  grows  weary, 
and  determines  to  vary  its  campaign  by  a  Fabian 
policy.  Again  he  stops  still,  "  sulling,"  his  ears  back, 
out  his  legs  braced  stiffly.  Jim  is  talking  soothingly 
to  him  now,  for  Jim  is  no  cruel  Greaser  horse  breaker, 
after  all,  and  has  no  vindictiveness  for  his  mount, 
whose  breaking  is  purely  an  impersonal  business  mat- 
ter to  him.  The  pony  at  length  slowly  turns  his  head 
around  and  bites  with  all  his  force  straight  into  the  leg 
that  grips  him.  The  heavy  "  chaps  "  protect  the  leg, 
and  the  spur  strikes  him  upon  the  other  side.  He 
turns  his  head  to  that  side  also  and  bites  that  leg,  but 
the  same  process  occurs  again.  With  a  sullen  fear  eat- 


100  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ing  at  his  heart,  the  pony  tries  yet  another  trick.  De- 
liberately he  drops  to  his  knees  and  lies  down  quietly 
upon  his  side,  perhaps  holding  the  rider  a  willing 
prisoner  fast  hy  the  leg  which  lies  under  his  body. 
The  rider  need  not  be  so  caught  unless  he*  likes,  but  it 
is  a  superstition  with  Jim  that  the  pony  should  never 
unseat  the  rider  nor  loosen  the  grip  of  the  legs  on  his 
sides.  Jim  thinks  that  should  he  do  this  the  matter 
of  breaking  would  be  longer  and  less  effective,  so  he 
takes  chances  and  holds  his  grip.  Were  the  pony  a  big 
"  States  "  horse,  his  manoeuvre  would  be  effective,  and 
the  rider  would  be  in  a  sad  predicament;  but  this  horse 
weighs  scarcely  more  than  six  hundred  pounds,  and 
the  big  stirrup,  perhaps  tied  to  its  fellow  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  is  under  him,  protecting  the  foot  of  the 
rider,  who  is  now  stretched  out  at  full  length  upon  the 
ground  beside  the  horse.  Moreover,  the  grass  is  up  a 
few  inches  in  height  perhaps,  and  all  in  all  the  leg  is 
able  to  stand  the  weight  of  the  horse  without  being 
crushed,  there  being  no  stone  or  stub  to  offer  injury, 
and  so  long  as  that  is  true  the  cowpuncher  does  not 
worry  about  it.  He  lies  and  talks  to  the  pony  kindly, 
and  asks  it  how  long  it  intends  to  stay  there  in  that 
way,  suggests  that  it  is  about  time  for  him  to  go  home 
for  dinner,  and  that  he  has  other  work  to  do  before  the 
day  is  over.  If  the  pony  be  very  stubborn,  he  may  lie 
so  for  several  minutes,  and  Jim  may  take  off  his  hat 
and  put  it  under  his  own  head  to  make  the  ground 
feel  more  comfortable.  Both  these  wild  creatures  are 
watchful  and  determined.  It  is  a  battle  of  waiting. 
The  pony  is  first  to  tire  of  it,  for  he  does  not  clearly 
know  how  much  damage  he  is  doing  the  cowpuncher's 
leg,  and  would  himself  prefer  to  act  rather  than  to  wait. 
With  a  snort  and  a  swift  bound  he  is  up  on  his  foot 
and  off,  his  spring  jerking  the  rider's  foot  clear  of  the 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE. 

stirrup.  At  last  he  has  won!  He  has  unseated  this 
clinging  monster!  He  is  free! 

But  almost  as  swift  as  the  leap  of  the  pony  was 
that  of  the  rider.  He  has  tight  in  his  hand  the  long 
stake  rope,  and  with  a  flirt  of  the  hand  this  unrolls. 
With  a  quick  spring  Jim  gets  to  one  side  of  the  horse, 
for  he  knows  that  an  "  end  pull "  on  the  rope  along 
the  line  of  the  horse's  back  will  be  hard  to  stop,  whereas 
the  matter  is  simpler  if  the  rope  makes  an  angle  with 
the  horse's  course.  His  gloved  hand  grasps  the  rope 
and  holds  the  end  of  it  close  against  his  right  hip.  His 
left  hand  runs  out  along  the  rope.  His  left  leg  is  ex- 
tended and  braced  firmly  on  the  ground,  and  with  all 
his  weight  he  leans  back  on  the  rope  until  it  is  nearly 
taut.  Then,  just  at  the  instant  when  the  rope  is  about 
to  tighten,  he  gives  a  swift  rolling  motion  to  it  with 
his  whole  strength,  sending  a  coiling  wave  along  it  as 
a  boy  does  sometimes  to  a  rope  tied  fast  to  a  tree.  This 
indescribable  and  effective  motion  is  magical.  The 
roll  of  the  rope  runs  to  the  head  of  the  pony  just  as 
the  cowpuncher  settles  back  firmly  on  his  heels.  The 
head  of  the  horse  comes  down  as  though  drawn  by  a 
band  of  iron.  His  heels  go  into  the  air,  and  over  he 
comes,  a  very  much  surprised  and  chagrined  cow  pony. 
He  awakes  and  arises  to  find  the  iron  hand  again  at  his 
head,  the  legs  of  steel  again  sitting  him  firmly.  The 
pony  has  not  known  that,  by  this  skilled  handling  of 
the  stake  rope  at  a  time  when  a  tenderfoot  would  be 
jerked  clean  from  his  feet,  the  cowpuncher  can  "  bust 
wide  open,"  as  he  calls  it,  the  strongest  pony  on  the 
range,  the  twist  giving  five  times  the  power  of  a  straight 
pull. 

The  heart  of  the  pony  fails  at  the  shock  of  this 
sudden  fall.  His  head  droops.  His  ears  relax  from 
the  side  of  his  head  where  they  have  been  tight  tucked. 
8 


102-  TEE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

Through  his  red,  bloodshot  eyes  the  landscape  swims 
dully.  He  looks  with  a  sob  of  regret  at  the  wide  sweep 
of  the  prairie  lying  out  beyond,  at  the  shade  of  the 
timber  niottes  on  the  horizon,  at  the  companions  of  his 
kind,  who  look  toward  him  now  with  heads  uplifted. 
At  last  he  begins  to  realize  that  he  is  a  captive,  that 
freedom  is  for  him  no  more,  that  he  has  met  his  master 
in  a  creature  stronger  in  will  and  in  resource  than  him- 
self. The  cowpuncher  urges  him  gently  with  his  knee, 
talking  to  him  softly.  "  Come,  bronch',"  he  says. 
"  It's  'bout  dinner  time.  Let's  go  back  to  the  ranch." 
And  the  broncho,  turning  his  head  clear  around  at  the 
pull  on  the  hackamore — for  he  is  not  yet  bridlewise — 
turns  and  goes  back  to  the  ranch,  his  head  hanging 
down. 

The  next  day  the  pony  has  regained  something  of 
his  old  wildness  and  self-confidence,  but  is  not  so  bad 
as  he  was  at  first,  and  the  result  is  the  same.  Mean- 
time he  has  been  learning  yet  more  about  the  lesson  of 
not  "  running  against  rope,"  and  has  cut  his  heels  so 
much  that  he  is  beginning  to  be  more  careful  how  he 
plunges  at  the  stake.  The  cowpuncher  rides  him  at 
times  in  this  way  for  four  days  or  so  on  the  hacka- 
more, and  then  puts  on  a  light  bridle  bit,  riding  him 
then  a  couple  of  days  longer,  gradually  teaching  the 
use  of  the  bit  and  bridle.  Then  the  hackamore  is  taken 
off,  and  the  pony  begins  to  learn  that  the  best  thing  he 
can  do  is  to  turn  at  the  touch  of  the  rein  on  the  neck 
and  to  stop  at  the  instant  the  reins  come  up  sharply. 
In  two  weeks  the  pony  is  quite  a  saddle  horse,  though 
it  is  well  to  watch  him  all  the  time,  for  he  has  a  light- 
ning estimation  of  the  man  about  to  ride  him,  will 
know  if  the  latter  is  afraid,  and  will  take  advantage  of 
his  trepidation.  All  his  life  the  pony  will  remember 
how  to  pitch  a  bit  at  times,  perhaps  just  for  fun,  be- 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  103 

cause  he  "  feels  good/'  perhaps  for  ugliness.  All  his 
life  he  will  hate  a  hind  cinch,  but  all  his  life  he  will 
remember  the  lesson  about  "  going  against  rope/'  and 
will  stop  still  when  the  rope  touches  him.  Even  if 
very  late  in  life  he  resumes  a  bit  of  friskiness  and 
evades  the  rope  a  little  in  the  corral,  the  sight  of  an- 
other horse  jerked  end  over  end  is  apt  to  bring  him  to 
a  sudden  sense  of  what  may  happen,  and  he  sobers 
down  very  quickly.  The  writer  recalls  a  big  black 
Spanish  pony  which  was  very  bad  on  the  stake,  and  had 
learned  some  way  of  getting  up  his  picket  pin  and  run- 
ning off,  contriving  to  loosen  the  pin  by  side  pulls  first 
on  one  side  and  then  the  other.  One  day  he  ran  off  in 
this  way  with  rope  and  pin  dangling,  and  started  at  full 
speed  through  a  bit  of  timber.  The  jumping  picket 
pin,  whipped  about  at  the  end  of  the  rope,  caught 
about  a  tree  with  a  sudden  twist,  and  the  horse  got 
one  of  the  worst  falls  it  was  ever  the  fortune  of  cow 
pony  to  experience,  going  into  the  air  clear  and  com- 
ing down  on  his  back  with  all  four  feet  up.  He  was  a 
dazed  and  repentant  horse,  and  from  that  time  on,  in 
the  words  of  the  cowpunchers,  he  was  "  plum  tender 
about  rope." 

In  the  breaking  season  on  a  horse  ranch  the  edu- 
cation of  several  ponies  would  be  going  at  once,  and 
thus  a  half  dozen  breakers  would  in  the  course  of  the 
summer  break  in  a  good  number  of  horses.  Sometimes 
a  few  additional  "  busters  "  would  be  hired,  these  some- 
times paid  by  the  head — say  five  dollars  or  so  a  head, 
according  to  the  time  and  locality.  The  close  of  the 
season  would  see  the  horse  ranch  ready  to  sell  off  quite 
a  band  of  broken  horses.  These  might  go  into  the 
"cavviejrard"  (cdballada;  sometimes  corrupted  also  into 
"cdvayer"  or  "cdv-a-yah")  of  some  outfit  bound  up 
the  trail,  or  they  might  go  to  some  other  part  of  the 


104  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

cow  range.  Some  of  the  breakers  would  be  apt  to  go 
up  the  trail — a  great  ambition  among  cowpunchers  in 
the  early  days.  Thus  Jim  was  something  of  a  traveller. 
He  saw  many  parts  of  the  range,  and  became  as  ready 
to  settle  in  Wyoming  as  in  New  Mexico,  in  Montana 
as  the  "  Nations."  But  \vherever  Jim  went,  no  matter 
upon  what  part  of  the  range,  his  mount  was  some  one 
of  these  sturdy  little  wild  horses  of  the  range.  This 
horse  would  stick  with  the  herd  when  the  day  herder 
came  out  to  drive  in  the  bunch  for  the  day's  work.  It 
would  pause  in  its  bound  and  throw  itself  back  on  its 
haunches  when  the  rope  tightened  on  the  leg  of  a  steer. 
It  would  stand  still  as  though  tied  if  the  cowpuncher 
threw  the  reins  down  over  its  head  and  left  them  hang- 
ing. It  would  stay  in  a  flimsy  rope  corral  made  by 
stretching  a  single  rope  from  a  wagon  wheel  to  the 
pommel  of  a  saddle.  It  would  comport  itself  with 
some  effort  at  common  sense  in  a  storm,  though  some- 
times breaking  out  into  the  wildest  and  most  uncon- 
trollable of  panics.  A  stampede  of  the  horse  herd  was 
far  worse  and  harder  to  handle  than  a  stampede  of 
cattle,  and  the  very  worst  of  all  stampedes  was  that 
of  a  band  of  old  saddle  horses.  But  gradually  the 
pony  learned  its  trade,  and  forgot  its  former  complete 
freedom  in  the  half  freedom  of  the  ranch  work.  It 
learned  to  follow  the  herds  of  cattle  with  a  vast  touch 
of  superiority  in  its  tone.  It  would  plunge  into  the 
mill  of  a  round-up  and  follow  like  a  bird  each  turn 
of  a  running  steer,  cheerfully  biting  its  thick  hide  at 
every  jump,  and  enjoying  the  fun  as  much  as  the  rider. 
It  would  travel  hour  after  hour  across  the  wavering 
and  superheated  sands  of  the  desert  country,  not  com- 
plaining about  water,  and  willing  to  make  its  living 
at  night  by  picking  at  the  short  grass  of  the  hard 
ground  in  the  summer,  sometimes  living  on  browse  in 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  105 

winter,  and  never,  in  the  early  days,  even  knowing  a 
taste  of  grain.  (The  Texas  herds  thafc  came  up  in  the 
early  days  would  at  first  nearly  starve  before  they 
would  eat  corn  or  oats).  This  cow  horse  never  had  a 
grooming  in  all  its  life,  and  if  touched  by  a  curry- 
comb would  have  kicked  the  groom  to  death  in  a  mo- 
ment and  then  broken  down  the  corral.  Its  back  was 
sure  to  be  sore,  and  its  temper  accordingly  a  trifle  un- 
certain, but  it  would  go  its  journey  and  do  its  stint 
and  take  what  Nature  gave  it.  Its  rough  rider  had  small 
apparent  love  for  it,  but  would  occasionally  slap  its 
side  with  a  rough  gesture  of  half  regard  after  some 
long  ride  when  it  stood,  tucked  up  and  steaming,  pant- 
ing with  the  fatigue  of  the  work.  No  blanket  ever 
covered  it  after  the  hardest  ride,  and  in  winter  it  had 
no  shelter  but  what  it  could  find  for  itself.  Hardier 
than  a  steer,  and  with  more  intelligence,  it  would  live 
where  cattle  would  starve  to  death,  pawing  down 
through  the  snow  and  getting  food  while  the  horned 
herds  were  dropping  of  starvation  all  about  it. 

No  cow  horse  ever  attained  to  the  dignity  of  a  name 
of  its  own,  though  it  might  for  purposes  of  identifica- 
tion be  mentioned  in  some  descriptive  term,  as  the 
"  wall-eyed  cayuse,"  the  "  star-face  sorrel,"  the  "  white- 
eyed  claybank,"  the  "  0  Bar  horse  from  Texas,"  etc. 
Yet  each  cowpuncher  of  the  ranch  force  would  know 
almost  every  horse  belonging  to  the  outfit,  and  if  one 
strayed  could  describe  it  to  any  one  he  met,  and  in 
such  fashion  as  would  enable  the  other,  if  he  were  a 
cowman  himself,  to  identify  it  at  once.  This  keen 
observation  was  matter  of  habit  on  the  range,  and  its 
development  was  greatest  among  the  old-time  men  of 
the  open  ranges. 

Without  the  American  cow  pony  there  could  have 
been  no  cattle  industry,  there  could  have  been  no  cow- 


106  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

boy.  Thus  the  horse  was  the  most  essential  and  valu- 
able property  of  the  cowman — indeed,  of  any  man  who 
faced  the  great  distances  of  the  plains.  The  cow  range 
was  a  horseback  country.  Men  had  few  items  of  prop- 
erty, and  could  carry  little  with  them.  What  they  had 
they  needed,  and  most  of  all  they  needed  their  means 
of  transportation.  The  horse  thief  was  the  criminal 
most  hated  and  despised  in  such  a  country,  and  his 
punishment  was  always  summary  and  swift.  The  horse 
thief  asked  no  mercy,  for  none  was  ever  given.  The 
justice  of  the  plains  was  stern.  The  hunting  parties 
who  went  out  after  a  horse  thief  rarely  came  back  with 
him.  Commonly  there  would  be  a  grave  report  made 
to  the  authorities  that  the  prisoner  had  been  taken, 
but  had  unfortunately  escaped.  Mexicans  at  times 
were  enterprising  horse  thieves  on  the  lower  ranges. 
One  ranch  party  pursued  and  shot  four  such  thieves 
on  one  occasion,  and  threw  their  bodies  up  on  top  of 
the  chaparral;  yet  the  report  at  the  settlement  was  that 
the  prisoners  had  "  escaped  in  the  night  from  their 
guards."  One  other  party  came  in  empty-handed,  and 
said  their  prisoner  had  "  jumped  over  a  bluff  and  re- 
ceived fatal  injuries."  So  he  had,  though  two  bullet 
holes  were  found  in  his  body  by  the  coroner.  A  negro 
horse  thief  was  pursued  at  another  time,  and  it  was 
declared  that  he  had  been  "  found  drowned."  This  also 
appeared  to  be  true,  but  he  was  later  discovered  to  have 
stones  tied  about  his  neck  and  several  bullet  holes 
through  his  body.  Nothing  but  extreme  youth  could 
serve  as  a  defense  for  the  man  found  guilty  of  stealing 
horses.  It  was  of  no  avail  for  him  to  attempt  to  palliate 
or  deny.  It  took  the  early  cowmen  a  long  time  to  be- 
come patient  enough  to  wait  for  legal  conviction  of  such 
a  criminal,  and  the  delays  of  the  law  seemed  to  thorn 
wasteful  and  wrong.  An  old-time  cowpuncher,  speak- 


THE  COWBOY'S  HORSE.  107 

ing  of  this  feeling,  voiced  the  general  sentiment. 
"  Why,  h— 1,"  said  he,  "  a  horse  thief  ain't  folks!  "  In 
these  summary  trials  of  the  plains  it  was  very  rare  that 
mistakes  were  made.  The  same  cowpuncher,  for  the 
time  more  confidential  than  his  kind  on  such  topics, 
where  reticence  was  usually  permanent,  admitted  that 
he  was  out  on  one  round-up  of  a  horse-thieving  band 
when  fifteen  men  were  hung.  "  An',"  said  he,  with 
conscious  virtue  in  his  tone,  "  we  never  did  make  but 
one  or  two  mistakes,  an'  them  fellers  ought  to  a-been 
hung  anyhow." 

There  comes  to  mind  one  such  hunt  for  a  horse 
thief,  though  in  this  case  the  youth  of  the  offender 
saved  his  life.  The  writer  was  riding  alone  over 
a  part  of  the  cattle  range  in  the  extreme  West,  some 
thirty  miles  from  a  settlement,  when  he  saw  the  dust 
of  an  approaching  vehicle.  In  those  times  and  in  that 
country  any  such  coming  traveller  was  regarded  with 
interest,  for  it  was  never  known  what  he  might  prove 
to  be.  In  this  case  it  turned  out  to  be  nothing  more 
formidable  than  a  fourteen-year-old  boy,  who  was  driv- 
ing a  jaded  team  hitched  to  a  buckboard.  The  boy  was 
anxious  and  alert-looking,  and  held  between  his  knees 
as  he  drove  a  Winchester  rifle,  on  which  he  kept  one 
hand  in  a  manner  familiar  enough  for  one  so  young. 
He  drove  steadily  on,  and  of  course  was  not  suspected 
of  being  anything  more  than  a  chance  traveller  in  a 
country  where  nothing  that  one  did  ever  attracted 
much  attention.  Some  miles  farther  along,  however, 
at  a  point  where  the  trail  turned  into  the  rough  vol- 
canic country  known  as  the  Mai  Pais,  there  came  gal- 
loping into  view  a  band  of  eight  dusty  and  determined- 
looking  cowpunchers,  who  pulled  up  short  and  stopped 
the  traveller,  asking  what  had  been  seen  back  farther  on 
the  trail.  The  description  of  the  outfit  passed  fitted 


108  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

their  case  exactly,  and  they  said  that  the  boy  had 
stolen  the  team  from  a  ranch  fifty  miles  away.  The 
men  dismounted,  loosened  their  saddle  girths  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  gave  their  animals  chance  to  breathe,  but 
soon  were  in  the  saddle  again,  and  sweeping  on  over  the 
hot  flats  on  a  long  gallop.  They  caught  the  boy  about 
twelve  miles  farther  on,  where  he  had  stopped  for 
food  and  water.  He  made  a  show  of  fight,  but  was 
disarmed.  Some  were  for  hanging  him,  but  the  ma- 
jority thought  it  was  wrong  to  hang  a  "  kid,"  so  he 
was  set  free.  The  cowpunchers  brought  back  the 
buckboard  and  team,  leaving  the  ambitious  youth  at 
last  accounts  on  foot  in  the  middle  of  the  plains.  His 
youth  had  been  a  blessing  to  him. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MAKKS  AND  BKANDS. 

LET  us  suppose  that  we  have,  so  to  speak,  discov- 
ered our  cowboy,  and  have  traced  rudely  the  beginnings 
of  his  occupation,  that  we  have  noted  something  of  his 
equipment  and  his  adjuncts,  and  gained  some  partial 
idea  of  his  environments.  It  would  seem,  then,  very 
fit  to  inquire  somewhat  of  the  motives  and  methods  of 
the  cowboy  and  his  calling.  If  we  have  been  in  the  least 
just  to  this  rude  character,  we  shall  have  seen  that  the 
foundation  of  his  whole  sense  of  morality  is  a  love  of 
justice.  In  that  one  thought  we  have  the  key  alike  to 
the  motives  of  the  cowboy  and  the  methods  of  his  trade. 
Crude  and  loose  as  were  those  methods,  their  central 
idea  was  the  purpose  of  substantial  justice,  their  ani- 
mating and  innate  intent  a  firm  respect  for*the  prop- 
erty rights  of  one's  fellow-man.  Those  rights,  large 
as  they  were  and  as  indefinite,  were  held  merely  on  the 
tenure  of  a  sign. 

The  sign  of  ownership  on  the  cow  range  was  as 
potent  as  the  iron  bars  of  hoarded  wealth  in  the  set- 
tlements. The  respect  for  this  sign  was  the  whole 
creed  of  the  cattle  trade.  Without  a  fence,  without  a 
bar,  without  an  atom  of  actual  control,  the  cattle  man 
held  his  property  absolutely.  It  mingled  with  the 
property  of  others,  but  it  was  never  confused  there- 
with. It  wandered  a  hundred  miles  from  him,  and  he 

109 


HO  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

knew  not  where  it  was,  yet  it  was  surely  his  and  sure 
to  find  him.  To  touch  it  was  crime.  To  appropriate 
it  meant  punishment.  Common  necessity  made  com- 
mon custom,  which  became  common  law,  which  in 
time  became  statutory  law.  But  with  each  and  every 
step  of  this  was  mingled  the  first  and  abiding  princi- 
ple of  the  American  cattle  man — the  love  of  justice. 

For  the  salient  features  of  the  cow  trade  we  must 
go  far  back  into  the  past,  and  as  usual  search  among 
its  beginnings  in  the  Spanish  Southwest.  What,  then, 
must  have  been  the  problem  which  presented  itself  to 
that  old  Spaniard,  the  first  cowman  of  the  West,  as  he 
sat  a  half-wild  horse  in  a  country  almost  wild,  and 
looked  out  over  herds  of  cattle  wholly  wild?  He  could 
not  feed  these  cattle,  and  he  could  not  fence  them. 
They  roamed  free  and  uncontrolled,  mingled  with 
herds  from  other  parts  of  the  country  which  were  sup- 
posed to  belong  to  some  other  owner.  How  should 
he  establish  the  extent  of  his  just  claims  as  against 
the  just  claims  of  his  neighbour?  Surely  it  must  have 
taken  even  the  slow  mind  of  the  old  Spaniard  but  a 
moment  to  realize  that  he  must  find  some  means  of 
pinning  upon  each  separate  animal  of  all  the  thou- 
sands hia  own  sign  of  ownership,  so  that  it  should  not 
be  confused  with  the  animals  belonging  to  other  men. 
But  how  should  this  be  done?  This  sign  must  be 
something  which  would  endure  always,  which  neither 
wind  nor  water  would  erase.  How  could  such  a  thing 
be  compassed?  Surely,  reasoned  this  distant  and  mist- 
enwrapped  old  Spaniard,  this  sign  must  be  burned 
deep  into  the  hide  of  the  creature  itself!  For  the  crea- 
ture did  not  shed  its  hide.  The  mark  burned  there 
would  always  remain.  Had  not  the  galleys  of  Europe 
shown  that?  Had  not  the  Inquisition  taught  it,  and 
the  Incas  proved  it  in  their  persons?  Truly  the  ques- 


MARKS  AND  BRANDS.  HI 

tion  was  solved.    On  each  animal  there  must  be  seared 
this  sign! 

This  was  an  idea  which  grounded  itself  upon  jus- 
tice— that  justice  in  this  case  perhaps  tempered  with 
a  respect  for  the  knife  and  escopeta  of  one's  neighbour. 
At  least,  our  early  ranchman  talked  this  over  with  his 
neighbour,  and  thus  they  formed  the  first  cattle  men's 
association  of  the  range,  and  registered  the  first  brands. 
No  doubt  these  primitive  cowmen  went  at  their  busi- 
ness in  a  loose  and  inefficient  way.  They  drove  into 
the  nearest  corral  all  the  cattle  they  could  find,  irre- 
spective of  age  or  sex,  and,  each  agreeing  upon  what 
should  be  called  his  own,  they  began  tracing  upon  the 
shrinking  hides  of  the  animals  the  first  rude  imagery 
of  ownership.  No  regular  stamp  for  the  branding  im- 
plement had  been  formulated.  The  only  branding 
iron  was  a  straight  bar  of  iron,  whose  end  was  heated 
red  hot  in  the  fire  and  then  used  as  a  glowing  pencil 
with  which  to  inscribe  on  the  living  flesh  the  agreed 
emblem  of  title.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  initials  of 
the  owners  were  the  first  signs  used,  for  the  old  dons 
had  so  many  initials  and  titles  that  the  hide  of  an  ordi- 
nary steer  would  hardly  have  served  to  show  them  writ 
large  as  their  owners  liked  to  see  them.  But  that  was 
a  day  of  crests  and  coronets  and  heraldic  signs,  as  well 
as  a  day  of  much  religious  fervour.  The  cross,  the 
sword,  the  lance — these  were  things  much  in  view  in 
that  time,  and  perhaps  they  contributed  of  their  sig- 
nificance to  these  first  totems  of  the  trade.  The  circle, 
the  square,  the  triangle,  the  bar,  the  parallel  lines — all 
these,  too,  were  things  simple  and  not  easily  to  be 
confused.  Some  of  the  old  Spanish  brands  have  hints 
of  some  such  origin.  They  were  executed  upon  a  large 
scale,  the  expanse  of  hide  seeming  to  invite  large  pat- 
terns for  their  tracery.  When  imagination  failed  a 


112  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ranchero  in  those  days,  he  varied  matters  by  a  series  of 
unique  cuttings  of  portions  of  the  animal's  anatomy. 
Perhaps  he  cut  off  half  an  ear  from  each  of  his  calves, 
or  cut  an  ear  off  on  one  side  and  made  a  deep  V  in 
the  other  ear.  Or  he  undercut  one  ear,  or  slit  both 
ears,  or  did  many  other  ingenious  embroideries  in  such 
portions  of  the  animal  as  offered  him  the  best  field  for 
operation.  He  might  cut  a  wattle  on  a  jaw,  or  slit  the 
dewlap  so  it  hung  down,  etc.  These  marks  were  as 
constant  as  the  brands,  and  of  course  needed  to  be 
done  in  the  same  regular  fashion.  They  continue  in 
use  upon  the  range  to-day.  Of  course,  as  the  country 
grew  older  and  more  cattle  came  upon  the  range — the 
property  of  an  increasing  number  of  owners — there 
arose  necessity  for  increasing  variety  in  marks  and 
brands,  each  of  which  needed  to  be  different  from  all 
others,  and  yet  simple  and  readily  recognised  under 
the  conditions  of  ranch  life.  To-day  there  are  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  such  different  brands. 

For  many  generations  the  cattle  of  the  prolific 
Southwest  ran  free,  each  bearing  on  its  hide  the  sign 
of  the  man  who  owned  it.  That  is  to  say,  a  part  of  the 
cattle  did,  for  in  the  loose  methods  of  the  early  days 
the  rodeo  was  shiftless  and  imperfect,  and  many  cattle 
got  through  year  after  year  unbranded.  Such  cattle 
ran  wild  over  the  range,  and  belonged  to  nobody  or 
to  anybody.  There  was  no  system  of  dividing  them 
out  among  owners.  They  were  not  enumerated  or 
estimated  or  taken  into  account.  Each  ranchero 
branded  cattle  until  he  felt  too  weary  to  continue  in 
the  work,  and  so  left  it  to  the  saints  to  finish,  or  until 
he  had  all  the  cattle  he  cared  for.  A  cow  was  worth 
no  actual  price,  and  such  a  thing  as  a  market  there 
was  not.  The  unbranded  cattle  increased  in  numbers  for 
many  years.  Of  course,  every  one  has  heard  of  the  enter- 


MARKS  AND  BRANDS.  113 

prising  Texan  of  the  second  quarter  of  this  century, 
by  the  name  of  Maverick,  who  made  a  business  of 
searching  the  range  for  such  unbranded  cattle  and 
putting  his  own  brand  on  all  such  he  found.  Thus  in 
a  few  seasons  he  got  together  an  enormous  herd,  and  so 
laid  the  foundation  for  a  vast  fortune.  His  example 
was  followed  by  many,  and  until  a  time  long  after  the 
civil  war  the  "  Maverick "  supply  was  a  prominent 
source  of  profit  in  the  cattle  trade.  Many  a  young 
man  owed  his  start  in  life  and  subsequent  independ- 
ence to  this  custom,  which  at  the  time  was  an  allowable 
and  legitimate  one;  and  there  were  large  herds  in 
Texas  and  New  Mexico  which  had  their  beginnings  in 
such  operations.  At  the  time  of  the  opening  of  the 
Northern  ranges  the  Maverick  industry  was  less  profit- 
able, but  the  question  of  unbranded  cattle  still  re- 
mained; for,  of  course,  in  the  nature  of  things  it  was 
impossible  to  collect  every  animal  born  upon  the 
plains,  and  so  there  ran  at  large  the  unestablished  title 
to  a  vast  amount  of  wealth,  whose  consideration  was 
one  demanding  serious  thought. 

Yet  another  question  came  into  the  early  problems 
of  the  cattle  trade.  At  times  a  man  might  wish  to  sell 
some  or  all  of  his  cattle.  His  son  might  wish  to  marry 
and  move  away,  or  his  son's  wife  might  wish  to  bring 
as  dowry  a  few  cows,  or  he  might  wish  to  pay  his  wife's 
father  a  few  cows  for  his  daughter.  How  could  such 
change  of  ownership  be  indicated?  Naturally,  by  the 
addition  of  the  receiver's  personal  brand.  But  then 
some  suspicious  soul  asked,  How  shall  we  know  whence 
such  and  such  cows  came,  and  how  tell  whether  or  not 
this  man  did  not  steal  them  outright  from  his  neigh- 
bour's herd  and  put  his  own  brand  on  them?  Here 
was  the  origin  of  the  bill  of  sale,  and  also  of  the  coun- 
terbrand,  or  the  "  vent  brand,"  as  it  is  known  on  the 


114  THE  STORY  OF  THE   COWBOY. 

upper  ranges  (probably  through  the  corruption  of  the 
word  "  vendor  "  or  "  vend  ").  The  owner  used  his  own 
brand  on  another  part  of  the  animal,  and  this,  in  the 
sign  language  of  the  range,  meant,  "  I,  owner  of  the 
recorded  brand  of,  say,  Triple  Cross,  have  sold  this 
animal,  as  see  his  hide,  to  the  owner  of  the  recorded 
brand  of,  say,  J.  Bar  A."  The  bill  of  sale  corroborated 
this  unchanging  record.  It  was  a  trifle  unfortunate 
for  the  animal  if  it  chanced  to  be  conveyed  a  great 
many  times.  Some  animals  from  the  Spanish  ranges  in 
the  early  cattle  days  were  covered  with  a  medley  of 
composite  marks  with  which  the  fabled  lawyer  from 
Philadelphia  would  certainly  have  been  quite  helpless. 

Yet  another  use  of  the  idea  of  marks  and  brands 
came  up  at  the  time  of  the  transfers  of  the  great  herds 
from  the  South  to  the  North  at  the  time  of  the  trails. 
As  it  was  very  likely  that  such  herds  would  suffer 
much  loss  on  the  way  from  straying  or  stampeding  or 
theft,  it  was  customary  to  "  road  brand  "  each  animal 
of  such  a  herd,  this  brand  being  the  sign  of  ownership 
en  route.  This  brand  saved  many  cattle  to  the  drovers, 
as  there  were  certain  men  who  made  a  business  of  look- 
ing up  'missing  cattle  and  returning  them  for  a  per 
capita  consideration  to  their  owners. 

Such  were  some  of  the  more  obvious  and  simple 
forms  of  the  necessities  and  uses  of  marks  and  brands. 
Almost  without  further  investigation  one  could  pre- 
dict the  method  and  the  system  of  the  trade,  and  see 
how  efficient  though  rude  must  be  such  methods,  how 
just  the  results  obtained  by  them  under  the  wild  sur- 
roundings of  an  unsettled  region.  One  could  predict 
also  something  of  the  character  of  the  cowboy.  Of  all 
the  methods  of  the  cattle  industry  and  of  its  dominat- 
ing intention  of  justice  the  cowboy  was  the  active 
agent.  He  lived  his  life  in  a  high  and  not  ignoble 


MARKS  AND  BRANDS.  115 

atmosphere,  and  he  learned  a  creed  whose  first  tenet 
was  the  rugged  spirit  of  fair  play.  The  natural  off- 
spring of  such  surroundings  was  a  normal  and  manly 
nature,  too  bold  for  craft,  too  strong  for  a  thing  dis- 
honourable. Popular  opinion,  formed  upon  impres- 
sions entirely  erroneous  in  the  first  place,  clings  to  the 
belief  that  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  cowboy  were 
his  "  toughness  "  and  lawlessness.  Those  who  knew 
him  were  aware  that  his  chief  trait  was  his  honesty. 

But  if  we  set  so  high  a  standard  for  our  cow- 
puncher — one  which  is  certainly  not  too  high — let  us 
not  be  deluded  into  the  belief  that  the  calling  trans- 
muted into  metal  of  equal  value  all  the  material  that 
came  under  it.  At  the  very  hour  that  the  American 
cowboy  first  rode  upon  the  stage  of  history  there  rode 
behind  him  a  man  almost  his  counterpart  in  the  rugged 
qualities  of  the  physical  man,  and  like  to  him  in  every 
way  except  in  moral  manhood.  As  the  cowboy  was  the 
guardian  of  herds,  so  was  this  slinking  shadow  their 
menace  and  their  enemy.  The  advent  of  the  cattle 
thief  was  simultaneous  with  that  of  the  cowboy.  We 
shall  need  to  see  how  the  system  of  marks  and  brands 
was  concerned  with  the  operations  of  this  dishonest 
man. 

It  is  very  easy  to  see  how  temptation  was  offered  to 
the  cow  thief  and  "brand  blotter."  Here  were  all 
these  wild  cattle  running  loose  over  the  country.  The 
imprint  of  a  hot  iron  on  a  hide  made  the  creature  the 
property  of  the  brander,  provided  no  one  else  had 
branded  it  before.  The  time  of  priority  was  matter 
of  proof.  With  the  handy  "  running  iron,"  or  straight 
rod,  which  was  always  attached  to  his  saddle  when  he 
rode  out,  could  not  the  cow  thief  erase  a  former  brand 
and  put  over  it  one  of  his  own?  Could  he  not,  for  in- 
stance, change  a  U  into  an  0,  or  a  V  into  a  diamond, 


116  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

or  a  half  circle  into  a  circle?  Could  he  not,  moreover, 
kill  and  skin  an  animal  and  sell  the  beef  as  his  own? 
Between  him  and  the  owner  was  only  this  little  mark. 
Between  him  and  changing  this  mark  was  nothing 
but  his  own  moral  principles.  The  range  was  very 
wide.  Hardly  a  figure  would  show  on  that  unwinking 
horizon  all  day  long.  And  what  was  a  heifer  here  or 
there? 

The  cow  thief  was  a  danger  to  the  interests  of  all 
cattle  men,  and  the  existence  of  a  common  danger  sug- 
gested the  idea  of  mutual  organization  against  it.  The 
cattle  men's  associations  were  a  necessity,  and  so  came 
early  into  life.  To-day  every  State  and  Territory  where 
there  are  considerable  cattle  interests  has  such  an 
association,  and  all  these  are  again  united  in  a  national 
association.  These  organizations  are  a  power  in  the 
land,  and  have  had  very  much  to  do  with  the  develop- 
ment and  expansion  of  the  cattle  trade.  They  enforce 
the  laws  bearing  upon  this  industry,  and  they  have 
secured  the  enactment  of  many  salutary  measures 
which  stand  upon  the  statute  books  of  a  dozen  differ- 
ent States.  Thus  a  State  may  make  it  compulsory  for 
any  butcher  to  produce  upon  demand  the  hide  of  any 
animal  he  has  butchered,  and  this  hide  must  show  the 
brand  mark,  and  he  must  be  able  to  explain  how  he 
came  in  possession  of  the  animal.  Always  this  little 
mark  of  ownership  is  held  the  "  best  possible  evidence  " 
that  the  law  demands  in  any  case  at  bar.  Altering 
brands  was  early  made  a  very  serious  offence,  and  the 
occupation  of  a  brand  blotter  was  a  risky  one. 

Early  in  the  history  of  the  complexity  of  range 
brands  it  became  customary  for  each  ranch  to  have  its 
branding  irons  made  of  a  fixed  stamp  or  pattern,  the 
brand  being  a  stencil  or  stamp  rather  than  a  pencil 
or  pen  for  writing  upon  the  hide.  This  was  at  first 


MARKS  AND  BRANDS.  117 

a  matter  of  convenience,  but  in  time  became  in  some 
States  a  matter  of  law.  Texas  in  the  ?70's  passed  an 
act  forbidding  the  use  of  the  "  running  iron  "  in  brand- 
ing. The  ranchman  who  had  acquired  by  purchase 
several  brands  beside  his  own  original  registered  brand, 
and  who  was  in  the  habit  of  writing  his  brands  with 
the  single  iron  as  occasion  required,  was  forced  to 
carry  with  him  to  his  work  a  separate  iron  for  each 
brand.  This,  of  course,  was  a  blow  aimed  at  the  brand 
blotter,  whose  innocent  single  iron  would  tell  no  tales 
if  he  were  caught  out  riding  across  the  range.  The 
law  made  an  object  of  suspicion  the  man  found  with 
the  single  running  iron.  He  was  obliged  to  explain, 
and  that  sometimes  before  a  very  urgent  jury.  To 
protect  their  brands  and  regulate  the  handling  of  the 
increase,  the  ranchers  of  the  different  portions  of  the 
range  very  early  saw  the  necessity  for  the  organization 
of  their  protective  associations.  The  by-laws  of  one 
of  these  great  bodies  (the  Montana  Stock  Growers' 
Association)  will  serve  to  show  the  purposes  of  all. 
Section  2  of  the  by-laws  reads: 

"  The  object  of  this  association  is  to  advance  the 
interests  of  the  stock  growers  in  Montana  and  adjoin- 
ing States  and  Territories,,  and  for  the  protection  of 
the  same  against  frauds  and  swindlers,  and  to  prevent 
the  stealing,  taking,  and  driving  away  of  cattle,  horses, 
mules,  and  asses  from  the  rightful  owners  thereof,  and 
to  enforce  the  Stock  Laws  of  the  State  of  Montana." 

Reference  to  the  Brand  Book  of  this  association 
shows  that  the  State  board  of  stock  commissioners 
numbers  sixteen  men;  that  the  State  association  has, 
besides  its  regular  officers,  an  executive  committee  of 
forty-two  men;  that  its  membership  numbers  nearly 
two  hundred;  that  the  different  brands  registered  by 
owners  of  the  association  run  fairly  into  the  thousands; 


118  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

for  hardly  any  ranch  exists  which  does  not  own  cattle 
bearing  marks  and  brands  very  dissimilar  in  their  na- 
ture. A  range  covered  by  a  given  rancher's  cattle  may 
have  upon  it  a  great  many  cattle  strayed  in  from  other 
ranges,  which  mingle  their  brands  with  those  owned 
by  the  ranch  through  purchase.  Very  curious  and  in- 
teresting indeed  are  the  pages  of  such  a  "  brand  book  " 
of  a  cattle  association.  A  page  taken  at  random  from 
the  book  of  the  Montana  association  shows  thirty-five 
different  brands  besides  the  home  brand  of  the  owner 
and  his  "  vent  "  or  selling  brand.  Each  of  these  brands 
is  registered,  and  each  must  come  into  account  in  the 
cattle  trade  along  with  those  of  the  many  other  cattle 
men  of  the  State.  Is  it  not  easy  to  see  to  what  extent 
has  run  the  idea  of  the  old  Spaniard  who  first  con- 
ceived the  notion  of  writing  his  totem  on  the  hide  of 
his  cows?  Moreover — for  we  are  concerned  not  so 
much  with  the  cattle  trade  as  with  the  cowboy  who 
conducts  that  trade — is  it  not  easy  to  see  what  intelli- 
gence and  skill  such  a  calling  demands  of  any  man? 
The  brands  of  a  single  ranch  would  confuse  utterly  the 
eye  of  a  tenderfoot;  but  the  foreman  Jim,  or  nearly  any 
man  under  him,  will  in  his  riding  over  the  range  un- 
consciously record  upon  his  mind  the  brand  of  almost 
every  animal  within  his  vision,  and  that  at  a  distance 
which  to  the  unpractised  eye  would  be  impossible.  He 
will  note  the  presence  of  a  strange  brand  upon  some 
animal,  and  will  note  that  yet  another  is  carrying  no 
brand  at  all. 

This  last  animal  which  Jim  finds  in  the  category  of 
those  met  in  his  daily  review,  this  Maverick  of  the 
range,  still  remains  an  interesting  element  in  the  co\v 
industry.  At  an  earlier  day  on  all  the  ranges  it  was 
customary  for  any  man  who  liked  to  rope  and  brand 
such  animals  found  wild  and  unmarked  on  the  open 


MARKS  AND  BRANDS.  119 

range.  Then  it  became  customary  to  brand  only  such 
as  were  found  on  that  country  so  circumscribed  as  to 
be  called  the  individual  range  of  such  certain  owner. 
For  instance,  in  the  waterless  Southwest,  the  cattle 
were  limited  in  their  feeding  habits  by  the  necessity 
of  going  to  water.  The  water  of  one  ranch  held  its 
own  cattle  pretty  well  distinguished  from  those  of  an- 
other. At  times  the  round-up  in  such  a  country  was 
a  very  loose  affair,  perhaps  only  one  or  two  owners  par- 
ticipating in  it.  In  such  a  country,  if  in  the  spring 
or  summer  after  the  round-up  a  calf  was  found  carry- 
ing no  brand,  it  was  branded  forthwith  by  the  man 
finding  it  on  his  range.  The  question  of  drifts  and 
strays  was  not  then  so  important  as  it  has  since  be- 
come, and  the  sharp-eyed  cowboy  who  saw  an  un- 
branded  animal  on  the  range  of  his  ranch  took  it  for 
granted  without  investigation  that  it  was  the  descend- 
ant of  one  of  his  employer's  cows.  This  might  or 
might  not  be  just,  but  it  was  the  nearest  approach 
to  justice  under  the  obtaining  conditions.  As  the 
conditions  changed  with  the  advent  of  additional  num- 
bers of  cattle  owners  upon  the  range,  so  also  the  de- 
mands of  abstract  justice  changed.  Thus  it  is  to-day 
the  custom  in  a  round-up  district — say,  of  the  State  of 
Montana — to  offer  at  sale  in  public  auction  all  the 
Mavericks  that  may  be  found  in  the  round-up.  These 
are  bid  upon  and  sold  at  so  much  .a  head  before  the 
round-up,  no  one,  of  course,  knowing  how  many  head 
there  will  be.  The  amount  of  money  thus  obtained  is 
distributed  pro  rata  among  the  cattle  owners,  the  sole 
idea  being,  as  we  have  above  suggested,  the  intention 
to  be  just  to  all.  This  is  thought  to  be  fairer  than 
to  allow  each  man  to  hunt  up  his  own  Mavericks.  Dili- 
gence in  the  Maverick  industry  is  no  longer  a  desirable 
trait  in  the  cattle  country.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  some- 


120  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

thing  regarded  with  much  suspicion  and  watchfulness, 
and  has  led  to  the  stretching  of  many  necks  as  well  as 
many  pocketbooks.  The  "  rustler  "  may  brand  upon 
the  range,  but  in  many  parts  of  the  cattle  country 
to-day  the  associations  ask  every  one  else  to  do  his 
branding  in  the  presence  of  his  associates  in  business; 
this  rule  subject  to  local  variations. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  old  Spaniard's  idea  has  trav- 
elled very  far  in  its  widened  applications  and  its  ex- 
tension of  usefulness.  Indeed,  it  goes  yet  further  in 
its  bearings  upon  the  trade.  As  the  brand  is  lifelong 
in  its  nature,  so  is  it  lifelong  in  its  usefulness.  The 
beginning  of  an  animal's  life  is  upon  the  range;  its 
end  is  in  the  markets  of  the  East,  in  the  stock  yards  of 
the  great  cities.  At  each  great  live-stock  market — 
such  as  Chicago,  Kansas  City,  Omaha,  etc. — each  cattle 
association  of  the  States  and  Territories  where  range 
cattle  are  shipped  now  has  a  special  officer,  known  as  a 
brand  inspector,  who  has  such  help  as  he  needs  in  his 
work.  Whenever  a  car  load  of  ranch  cattle  comes  into 
the  market,  it  is  viewed  by  the  proper  inspector,  who 
examines  the  cattle  to  see  if  they  are  branded  in  uni- 
form manner.  Suppose  the  brand  of  the  shipper  is 
IXL,  and  that  among  these  IXL  cattle  there  are  found 
two  steers  branded  AXL.  The  inspector  at  once  asks 
where  the  latter  came  from,  and  if  the  shipper  can 
not  explain  at  once  how  they  came  to  be  with  his  cattle, 
he  is  subjected  to  rigid  examination,  which  may  lead 
to  his  prompt  arrest  by  the  inspector.  Unless  satis- 
factory answers  can  be  made  to  such  questions,  the 
suspected  animals  are  taken  away  from  the  rest  of  the 
shipment  and  sold  by  the  inspectors.  The  money 
from  such  sale  is  sent  at  once,  not  to  the  owner  of  the 
IXL  cattle,  but  in  due  routine  to  the  owner  of  the 
AXL  brand.  The  whereabouts  of  the  latter  is  very 


MARKS  AND  BRANDS.  121 

likely  easily  discovered  by  reference  to  the  State  Brand 
Book;  but  if  he  can  not  be  found,  and  no  representa- 
tive secured  to  accept  this  money  sent  him  from  the 
inspector,  the  proceeds  are  finally  given  to  the  treas- 
urer of  the  State  association,  to  be  applied  to  the  good 
of  the  whole  cattle  industry  of  the  State.  Here  again 
is  a  very  powerful  example  of  the  idea  of  justice,  and  a 
very  good  instance  of  the  fact  that  the  old  Spaniard 
builded  far  better  than  he  knew. 

The  cattle  trade  with  all  its  ramifications  has  never 
gone,  and  can  never  get  any  further  than  the  possibilities 
of  the  old  Spaniard's  marks  and  brands.  These  tokens 
of  ownership  remain  to-day  the  expression  of  a  senti- 
ment of  integrity  and  of  a  wish  for  common  justice. 
The  outdwellers  of  the  plains  have  as  high  a  standard 
of  commercial  honour  as  obtains  in  the  most  intricate 
banking  system  of  the  cities.  Not  Wall  Street  nor 
the  Board  of  Trade  ever  inculcated  principles  more 
rigid  or  of  more  worth.  But,  as  a  house  is  no  better 
than  its  servants,  and  as  no  law  is  stronger  than  its 
executive  measures,  so  is  the  cattle  trade  no  better 
than  the  cowboy.  He  is  its  head  executive  and  its 
working  manager,  and  upon  his  personal  qualities  of 
hardihood  and  honourableness  depends  the  success  of 
every  venture  in  the  wild  unfettered  business  of  the 
range.  It  is  the  cowpuncher  who  first  brands  the  calf 
when  it  becomes  the  property  of  his  ranch.  He  is 
perhaps  foreman  of  the  ranch  which  raises  it.  He  may 
pull  it  out  of  the  bog  hole  where  it  would  perish.  He 
may  protect  it  against  theft.  He  may  drive  it  to  a 
range  where  it  can  better  live.  He  is  perhaps  captain 
of  the  round-up  which  "  throws  it  over  "  to  its  proper 
range  if  it  has  strayed.  He  may  assist  on  the  drive 
which  takes  it  to  the  market  after  the  beef  round-up, 
or  he  may  even  go  with  it  to  the  distant  city.  The 


122  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

very  brand  inspector  who  examines  it  there  as  the  rules 
of  justice  require  is  certainly  no  man  who  got  his  place 
through  political  preferment,  but  is  some  old  cowboy, 
trained  by  long  years  of  experience  to  catch  quickly 
the  brand  upon  any  living  creature.  He  practises 
his  trade  here  in  the  cattle  pens  of  the  city,  but  he 
learned  it  out  there  on  the  range,  where  the  earth  was 
very  wide  and  gray,  and  where  the  sky  was  very  wide 
and  blue,  bending  over  him  with  even  arch  on  each 
hand  alike,  as  wide  and  as  blue  for  one  man  as  for 
another. 


CHAPTEE   VII. 

FREE   GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS. 

FORTUNATE  indeed  must  have  been  our  ancient 
ranchero,  the  first  cowman  of  the  West.  Before  him 
lay  an  untouched  world,  vast,  vague,  and  inviting. 
What  must  have  been  to  him  the  whispers  that  came 
across  the  plains?  Did  the  spirits  say  nothing  to  him 
of  the  mysterious,  the  unexplored?  Did  no  wild  bird, 
winging  high  over  this  calm  and  smiling  country, 
carry  to  him  some  hint  of  that  which  lay  beyond  ?  Was 
there  not  some  voice  whispering  in  the  grasses  telling 
him  of  things  yet  to  be?  Did  there  not  come  to  him 
out  of  that  vague,  alluring,  compelling  Unknown  some 
unseen,  shadowy,  irresistible  beckoning?  We  know  of 
the  tasks  of  those  first  travellers,  but  what  do  we  know 
of  their  impulses?  Perhaps  they  dared  go  forward  be- 
cause they  dared  not  do  otherwise. 

To  the  imagination  of  the  old  Spaniard  this  un- 
known country  was  not  a  land  of  cattle,  but  a  land  of 
gold.  His  thought  was  always  upon  gold,  and  all  else 
was  incidental.  He  looked  out  over  the  range  of  these 
"  cattle  of  deformed  aspect,"  as  Coronado  called  the 
buffalo,  and  he  figured  to  himself  that  somewhere  out 
in  that  vast  wind-swept  solitude  there  must  lie  the 
fabled  Seven  Cities  of  Cibola,  whose  streets  were  of 
solid  gold,  and  whose  edifices  were  all  builded  in  that 
same  precious  metal.  Coronado — bold  soul! — had  this 

123 


124:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

thought  ever  in  his  mind  as  he  pressed  on  in  his  march 
from  Mexico  to  the  Missouri  River,  the  first  man  to 
cross  the  American  cattle  plains.  Always  he  thought 
to  see  the  towers  arise  beyond,  out  there  in  the  blue 
and  gray  horizon.  Nay,  in  his  dreams  by  night  he 
must  have  seen  these  cities.  In  his  dreams  by  day  he 
must  have  seen  them,  rising,  beckoning,  eluding,  evad- 
ing, the  wraith  of  his  cherished  hope.  On  and  on,  far 
across  the  red  mesas  of  New  Mexico,  across  the  white 
flats  of  Texas,  the  gray  plains  of  Kansas,  he  pressed, 
until  he  stood  at  the  banks  of  the  great  Missouri, 
boundary  to-day  of  the  cattle  range,  a  disappointed  but 
still  believing  man.  He  turned  back — he  and  all  his 
men  on  foot — and  crossed  the  great  range  again  on 
his  return  to  Mexico,  seeing  many  thousands  of  these 
cattle  of  "  deformed  aspect,"  but  not  finding  the  cities 
of  Cibola.  Yet  behind  him,  as  they  had  been  before 
him,  there  arose  and  danced  on  the  air,  waving,  beckon- 
ing, these  cities  of  gold.  To  their  beckoning  have  come 
since  then  the  thousands  of  the  world.  The  gold  that 
built  their  structures  lay  under  Coronado's  feet  as  he 
walked  those  many  weary  leagues,  this  glorious  and 
still  remembered  soldier  of  another  day. 

All  the  gold  of  the  cattle  range  lay  before  the  first 
ranchero,  all  the  untouched  resources  of  an  empire. 
All  the  range  was  "  free  grass  "  then,  and  the  Spaniard 
grumbled  because  it  was  not  all  free  gold.  Alas!  for 
those  days,  and  ah!  for  one  more  country  anywhere 
upon  this  globe  which  shall  for  one  moment  compare 
with  that  West  which  lay  before  the  first  cowman  on 
the  range! 

For  a  century  or  two  it  was  still  free  grass.  Since 
all  the  earth  lay  open  to  everybody,  what  need  to  fence 
a  portion  of  it?  If  a  neighbour  came  from  a  hundred 
miles  away,  was  he  not  welcome?  His  cattle  would 


FREE  GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS.          125 

not  come  so  far,  but  would  stay  nearer  to  the  range 
where  they  were  born.  But  after  a  time  there  began 
to  be  more  people  and  more  cattle.  Some  strong- 
legged  hidalgo,  who  had  walked  a  thousand  leagues  or 
so  and  made  some  hundreds  of  Indian  converts  by  the 
simple  process  of  cutting  oft'  their  heads,  had  for  this 
high  service  to  the  Crown  and  Church  gift  made  to 
him  of  some  great  grant  of  land.  The  sovereign  grant- 
ing this  land  to  his  beloved  subject  had  no  idea  where 
it  was,  and  neither  had  the  subject.  He  came  to 
America  with  a  parchment  entitling  him  to  enter  into 
possession  of  so  many  miles  of  land,  beginning  at  a 
stone  and  running  to  a  tree,  and  this  was  description 
good  enough  so  long  as  no  one  cared.  The  hidalgo 
was  pretty  sure  to  locate  his  grant  upon  the  best  water 
he  could  find,  for  in  that  dry  and  desert  country  water 
was  something  of  the  most  constant  concern.  The  man 
who  went  on  a  journey  took  with  him  certain  skins  of 
water,  lest  he  should  find  none  on  the  way.  A  little 
rio,  a  living  spring,  a  tank  that  never  failed — these  were 
the  things  which  determined  the  locations  of  haciendas 
and  of  towns.  The  families  which  were  later  to  be 
the  great  and  wealthy  ones  were  those  lucky  enough 
to  get  in  upon  the  shores  of  some  large  river  such  as 
the  Rio  Grande.  Less  fortunate  was  he  who  had  but 
a  tiny  spring  which  flowed  a  feeble  rivulet  over  the 
thirsty  soil. 

There  came  a  time  when  the  cattle  of  some  adjoin- 
ing rancho  trampled  the  spring  of  some  old  ranchero, 
who  in  wrath  laid  down  a  few  crooked  cedar  boughs 
about  the  spring,  and  thus  built  the  first  fence  upon 
the  range.  As  this  old  ranchero  had  his  sheepskin 
grant,  and  as  he,  moreover,  perhaps  had  a  body  of  men 
trained  and  paid  to  fight  for  him,  he  was  no  doubt 
allowed  to  leave  his  fence  as  he  had  placed  it,  and  the 


126  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

cattle  went  elsewhere  to  drink.  Their  owner  in  turn 
fenced  off  for  himself  a  bit  of  water,  building  a  fine 
large  fence  of  cedar  limbs,  bound  well  together  with 
strips  of  rawhide.  And  so  this  went  on,  generation 
after  generation,  each  generation  needing  more  range 
and  more  water,  though  still  the  generous  West  had 
enough  for  all. 

There  was  abundance  of  grass  for  all,  but  the  water 
was  startlingly  and  disproportionately  scanty.  Yet  if 
a  man  kept  his  title  legally  or  by  force  of  arms  to  the 
water  he  had  fenced,  what  was  to  be  done?  The  cattle 
could  go  only  so  far  to  drink,  and  if  the  owner  of  a 
water  front  wanted  all  the  water  for  himself,  there  was 
no  way  to  settle  it  but  to  buy  him  out,  kill  him,  or 
marry  into  his  family — all  of  which  methods  were 
popular,  and  each  of  which  had  especial  merits  of  its 
own.  Water  front  thus  came  to  be  the  one  desired 
thing  in  the  cattle  trade  of  the  dry  Southwest.  In 
brief,  the  grass  was  free,  but  the  "Water  was  not  free. 
The  result  was  that  the  man  who  owned  the  water  had 
all  outdoors  for  his  range,  and  needed  to  pay  not  a 
dollar  for  any  land  outside  that  along  the  water.  No 
one  wanted  this  outside  land.  Any  one  could  settle 
upon  it  who  liked,  but  it  was  very  sure  no  one  would 
like. 

Perhaps  there  was  a  daughter  of  some  ranchero's 
family  who  owned  a  mile  of  water  front  and  a  heart 
susceptible  to  the  charms  of  the  robust  Albericano. 
Some  wandering  teamster,  perhaps  a  deserter  from  one 
army  or  other  in  the  civil  war,  drifted  in  across  this 
country,  met  and  wooed  and  married  the  senorita,  and 
so  after  a  fashion  got  control  of  the  water  front.  Per- 
haps the  teamster  sold  out  after  a  while  to  some  ranch 
agent,  giving  at  least  a  quit-claim  deed  to  his  shadowy 
rights,  and  moved  off  across  the  country  again,  prob- 


FREE  GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS.          127 

ably  to  marry  some  other  senorita  at  some  other  place. 
Then  perhaps  the  ranch  agent  hired  some  cowboy  or 
some  one  else  who  was  not  very  busy  just  then  to 
"  file  on  a  quarter  "  on  some  other  water  at  another 
place,  he  making  his  claim  under  the  Desert  Lands  Act, 
or  the  Mineral  Lands  Act,  or  the  Homestead  Act,  or 
any  other  act  upon  which  there  could  be  hung  a  lawsuit 
or  a  fight.  Since  the  only  opposing  title  was  perhaps 
one  dating  back  into  the  impenetrable  haze  of  some 
Spanish  land  grant,  and  since  it  was  very  far  to  the  city 
of  Washington,  and  since,  moreover,  it  was  a  weary 
country,  where  no  one  cared  very  much  what  any  one 
else  was  doing,  the  affair  was  probably  concluded  pleas- 
antly all  around,  with  not  more  funerals  than  seemed 
absolutely  necessary.  Thus  the  land  agent  got  control 
of  several  "  pieces  of  water,"  no  one  knowing  or  caring 
who  owned  the  land.  Then,  if  this  were  in  the  palmy 
days  of  the  trade,  the  agent  very  likely  went  to  Eu- 
rope and  sold  out  all  the  land  lying  between  these 
pieces  of  water  which  he  owned  and  which  he  did 
not  own,  Government  land  and  all,  fraudulent  home- 
stead or  desert  or  mineral  land  entries  included,  to 
whatsoever  customer  he  could  find.  It  was  not  diffi- 
cult to  find  a  buyer  in  those  days,  for  Europeans  had 
no  knowledge  of  this  country,  and  were  wild  at  the 
stories  of  the  profits  of  the  cattle  trade,  than  which 
nothing  ever  did  figure  out  more  handsomely  upon 
paper.  Sometimes  the  land  agent  had  a  map  of  his 
country  nicely  executed.  It  is  of  record  that  one  of 
the  most  successful  of  these  ranch  agents  took  over 
to  Holland  with  him  a  finely  drawn  map  of  a  tract  of 
land  in  New  Mexico,  showing  many  rivers  no  one  else 
had  ever  found,  and  displaying  steamboats,  with  pretty 
clouds  of  smoke  rolling  from  their  smokestacks,  navi- 
gating the  waters  of  the  upper  Pecos,  where  really  a 


128  THE  STORY  OP  THE  COWBOY. 

man  could  wade  comfortably  for  mountain  trout.  Yet 
this  map  did  its  work,  and  made  the  man  his  fortune. 
Some  time  after  he  had  departed,  the  Holland  syndi- 
cate bethought  itself  to  send  over  a  representative  to 
look  into  this  land  of  steamboats.  This  representative 
assured  them  that  they  ought  certainly  to  have  their 
money  back,  for  no  steamboats  could  be  found.  It 
was  too  late  then,  however.  The  jovial  inhabitants 
laughed  merrily  at  the  protests  of  the  foreign  custom- 
ers for  a  cattle  ranch,  nor  has  explanation  ever  been 
forthcoming  for  the  absence  of  the  steamboats  on  the 
Pecos.  A  wealthy  Englishman  or  English  syndicate 
was  a  favourite  customer  for  such  a  tract  of  land,  and 
history  hath  not  yet  recorded  all  the  frauds  that  were 
perpetrated  upon  foreigners  under  the  name  of  ranch 
property  in  the  sunny  and  calm  Southwest.  In  these 
operations  there  were  so  many  crimes  committed 
against  the  United  States  land  laws  that  early  in  the 
'80's  inspectors  were  sent  down  by  the  Government, 
who  looked  into  matters  and  uncovered  a  very  pretty 
kettle  of  fish. 

In  other  portions  of  the  Southern  country  where 
also  the  soil  was  dry  and  valueless,  vast  bodies  of  land 
held  under  various  individual  or  State  titles  were  upon 
the  market  at  a  price  of  not  more  than  a  few  cents  an 
acre.  Fifteen  cents  an  acre  was  long  thought  to  be 
an  exorbitant  price  for  land  which  has  since  then  sold 
for  many  dollars  an  acre.  Many  men  thus  got  control 
of  large  bodies  of  land  by  actual  purchase.  Many 
leased  or  bought  large  tracts  of  school  lands  or  rail- 
road lands,  perhaps  leasing  every  alternate  section  of 
the  land.  This  latter  tenure  usually  seemed  sufficient 
to  warrant  fencing  in  the  entire  tract  upon  which  the 
alternate  sections  lay,  this  keeping  out  other  parties 
who  did  not  know  just  what  was  the  description  of 


FREE  GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS.          129 

the  land.  Limits  and  bounds  were  more  elastic  in 
those  days  than  they  are  now,  for  the  country  seemed 
unspeakably  large  and  inexhaustible.  Numbers  of 
alien  landholders  went  into  the  State  of  Texas  under 
ranch  titles  such  as  the  above.  In  time  there  came  to 
be  trouble  over  ranch  titles  in  that  State,  just  as  there 
has  been  trouble  in  every  State  where  the  loose  nature 
of  such  titles  has  finally  been  discovered.  Meantime 
the  farming  element  came  steadily  on  in  Texas,  and 
now  that  State  is  free  grass  no  more,  and  the  rancher 
must  there  control  his  holdings  under  some  process 
of  law. 

In  the  Indian  Nations,  to  follow  the  course  of  the 
ranch  to  the  North,  the  cattle  men  did  not  have  free 
grass,  but  made  very  desirable  leases  of  large  tracts  of 
land  of  the  Indians,  often  gaining  extremely  valuable 
privileges  at  a  nominal  cost.  Later  these  privileges 
were  much  curtailed  by  the  Government.  The  Kiowas 
and  Comanches  leased  their  own  land  direct  to  the 
cattle  men.  In  the  case  of  the  Cherokees  and  Creeks 
the  leases  had  to  run  to  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment, the  usual  form  being  a  per  capita  tax  upon  all 
cattle  pastured  upon  the  tribal  lands.  But  as  this  tax 
was  sometimes  estimated  upon  the  cattle  actually 
shipped,  and  not  upon  those  actually  ranged,  the 
sophisticated  ranchmen  were  able  to  stand  the  hard- 
ship. The  "  ten-mile  strip  "  on  the  upper  part  of  these 
lands,  adjoining  the  State  of  Kansas,  was  parceled  out 
into  lots  of  perhaps  ten  by  twenty  miles,  and  leased 
to  cattle  men,  who  fenced  it,  charging  up  the  cost  of 
the  fencing  against  their  lease  payments,  and  leaving 
the  Indians  owners  of  the  fences,  as  they  desired  to 
be;  for  they  did  not  want  their  own  cattle  running 
over  the  farms  of  the  Kansas  grangers.  All  the  moneys 
of  the  ten-mile  strip  leases  were  applied  to  the  joint 


130  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

revenue  of  the  tribes.  The  cattle  men  of  the  Nations 
have  their  ranges  under  fence,  so  that  the  old  forms 
of  cattle  growing  are  there  much  changed,  the  business 
being  more  like  a  vast  farming  operation.  Under  such 
conditions  all  the  features  of  round-ups,  the  question 
of  Mavericks,  etc.,  are  much  simplified.  Yet  the  ten- 
ure of  the  ranch  holdings  in  the  Nations  is  a  more  or 
less  uncertain  thing,  held  in  some  sections  only  from 
year  to  year,  and  subject  to  the  watchfulness  of  the 
authorities  at  Washington.  There  is  no  free  grass  in 
that  country  now. 

In  Kansas  there  is  a  herd  law,  under  which  the 
farmer  does  not  fence  his  land,  but  which  compels  the 
cattle  man  to  pay  for  any  damage  done  by  his  cattle 
to  the  crops  of  the  farmer.  Naturally  the  cowman 
does  not  love  a  State  where  they  "  turn  out  their  farms 
and  fence  up  their  cows,"  as  the  cattle  man  expresses  it. 
This  State  is  now  largely  given  up  to  farming,  though 
at  the  time  of  the  great  drives  it  had  large  tracts  of 
free  grass.  Ten  years  after  the  drives  the  settlers  had 
flooded  all  over  the  Government  lands  and  left  little 
open  ground.  Since  that  time  many  of  the  home- 
steads of  the  dry  southwestern  parts  of  the  State  have 
been  abandoned,  and  there  are  some  cattle  ranging 
there  without  objection,  though  there  is  little  left  to 
appeal  to  a  large  operator. 

In  Nebraska  the  same  herd  law  exists.  This  State 
was  also  long  ago  tested  as  a  farming  region,  yet  there 
remain  some  tracts  of  wild  land  in  the  western  part 
of  the  State,  where  a  great  many  cattle  are  ranged. 
Some  ranchers  there  hold  large  bodies  of  school  lands 
under  lease.  These  are  fenced,  and  it  is  very  possible 
that  there  may  bo  included  in  these  fences  some  lands 
not  included  in  the  leases.  The  Western  cowman  has 
always  had  a  naive  way  of  believing  that  everybody 


FREE  GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS.          131 

wished  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  all  the  doubts  in  the 
matter  of  range  limits. 

In  Colorado  we  come  again  upon  the  dry  country 
similar  to  that  of  New  Mexico,  where  the  question  of 
water  fronts  first  came  up.  There  is  free  grass  in 
Colorado,  but  much  of  it  is  free  upon  country  which  is 
of  no  use  without  water,  and  the  best  of  the  water  was 
taken  up  long  ago.  Here,  as  also  to  a  great  extent 
in  Texas,  the  cattle  depend  upon  water  raised  from 
artesian  or  other  wells  by  windmills.  The  best  of  the 
natural  water  of  Colorado  is  fenced  and  used  for  irri- 
gating purposes.  In  this  we  meet  still  another  factor 
of  great  moment  in  the  cattle  questions  of  the  day. 
The  tendency  of  a  country  where  crops  can  be  raised 
by  irrigation  is  toward  small  holdings,  and  this  is,  of 
course,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  cow  trade.  Yet 
there  are  many  large  tracts  of  land  in  Colorado  which 
are  leased  or  owned  by  cattle  men. 

Both  North  and  South  Dakota  have  herd  laws  simi- 
lar to  those  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  Yet  there  are 
vast  tracts  of  "  bad  lands  "  in  the  Dakotas  which  will 
never  be  farmed,  and  where  the  hopes  of  the  cattle 
man  for  undisturbed  range  may  nourish,  subject  only  to 
the  constant  fear  of  the  depasturage  of  the  range  from 
too  great  numbers  of  the  cattle.  There  are  bodies  of 
Government  and  railroad  lands  in  these  States  which 
are  leased  by  cattle  men,  and  in  the  wilder  parts  of 
the  country  the  grass  is  free  or  practically  free  for  the 
small  rancher,  though  technically  under  the  herd  law. 
The  herd  law,  of  course,  has  no  terrors  for  the  man 
who  has  no  neighbours. 

"Wyoming  is  now  the  greatest  or  second  greatest  of 
the  cattle  States.  There  is  free  grass  in  Wyoming  and 
no  herd  law,  and  much  of  the  land  is  so  high,  dry,  and 
broken  in  its  nature  that  the  farmer  will  never  trouble 


132  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  cowman,  who  will  continue  to  be  as  he  is  now — the 
controlling  citizen  of  the  commonwealth,  the  enor- 
mous cattle  industry  overruling  all  others.  It  is  for- 
bidden by  State  law  to  fence  in  any  of  the  public  lands 
of  Wyoming,  though  certain  descriptions  of  lands  may 
be  bought  or  leased  of  the  State  and  then  fenced.  Of 
course  the  homesteader  may  fence  his  little  holding 
if  he  likes.  The  small  farmer  has  made  his  appearance 
in  Wyoming,  and  will  be  more  and  more  of  a  figure 
there  from  year  to  year.  Millions  of  acres  of  the  lands 
of  the  State  are  really  fertile  as  any  in  the  world  when 
only  they  have  water  brought  upon  them,  and  for  some 
time  both  large  and  small  irrigating  interests  have 
been  at  work  seeking  to  increase  the  wealth  of  the 
State  in  agricultural  regards.  The  future  of  the  cow- 
men in  Wyoming  lies  in  the  exceedingly  uncompromis- 
ing nature  of  much  the  greater  portion  of  the  land,  which 
is  too  broken  or  too  high  for  farming.  In  the  Dakotas 
and  in  Wyoming  the  natural  water  is  for  the  most 
part  abundant  enough  to  obviate  all  question  of  water- 
front rights. 

Montana  has  also  free  grass  for  all  men,  and  one 
man  has  as  good  a  right  as  another  to  let  his  cattle 
run  free  over  the  unoccupied  Government  lands.  Here 
the  cowman  has  the  best  of  the  farmer,  who  must  fence 
his  crops  if  he  would  sustain  action  against  a  cowman 
for  damage  done  by  his  cattle.  Great  bodies  of  land 
lie  wild  here  which  can  never  be  farmed,  though  all 
the  little  flats  and  valleys  over  which  the  water  can 
be  led  are  now  pretty  well  taken  up  by  the  man  who 
irrigates  and  farms.  (Properly  speaking,  the  rancher 
is  himself  a  farmer,  though  the  meaning  of  the  word 
has  been  changed  by  popular  usage.  The  rancher  him- 
self is  more  generous  or  perhaps  more  accurate  in  his 
own  use  of  the  term.  He  speaks  of  a  "  hay  ranch/'  a 


FREE  GRASS  AND  WATER  FRONTS.          133 

"  fruit  ranch,"  a  "  hen  ranch,"  etc.)  In  Montana  the 
question  of  water  front  is  of  little  consequence,  for 
there  is  natural  water  enough  to  balance  the  natural 
grass. 

In  the  free-grass  country,  such  as  that  of  Wyoming 
or  Montana,  there  may  be  seen  again  proof  of  the 
cattle  man's  custom  of  respecting  the  rights  of  others. 
Although  the  country  is  as  much  one  man's  as  an- 
other's, the  man  who  has  possession  of  a  certain  por- 
tion of  the  range  has  his  rights  roughly  regarded, 
even  though  he  be  smaller  in  importance  than  his 
neighbour.  The  latter  will  be  affected  by  a  depasturage 
as  much  as  the  former,  though  sometimes  a  body  of 
cattle  is  driven  in  and  must  take  its  chances.  The 
new  man  on  the  range  respects  the  lines  commonly 
accepted  by  the  local  men  as  the  limits  of  the  respective 
ranges,  and  hunts  about  for  the  best  place  left  open 
for  himself.  Of  course,  the  future  will  see  more  and 
more  curtailment  of  the  free-grass  privilege,  especially 
in  such  parts  of  the  country  as  are  well  watered,  and  all 
things  point  to  the  d#y  when  the  rancher  must  control 
his  land  in  such  way  that  he  can  legally  fence  it  and 
shut  out  all  others. 

A  great  enemy  to  the  cattle  trade  has  for  years 
been  growing  up  upon  the  same  country  with  it  and 
under  the  same  conditions.  At  this  writing  this  dan- 
ger has  assumed  such  proportions  as  to  threaten  the 
permanence  of  profitableness  of  cow  ranching  even 
upon  that  portion  of  the  open  range  which  may  still  be 
called  free  grass.  This  menace  is  no  less  than  the 
sheep  industry,  itself  a  great  one,  albeit  cordially  de- 
tested by  your  genuine  cowman,  who  has  a  deep-seated 
contempt  for  any  one  who  will  look  at  a  sheep.  The 
great  flocks  of  sheep  differ  in  a  singular  and  impor- 
tant respect  from  the  herds  of  the  cowman.  They  can 
10 


134  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

not  live  unless  they  move.  Confined  on  close  pasture, 
they  contract  disease  and  die  by  thousands.  Allowed 
to  "  walk/'  or  range  and  feed  forward  over  a  great 
extent  of  country  during  the  season,  they  increase  and 
thrive.  A  flock  of  sheep  starting,  say,  in  Colorado 
or  the  Green  Eiver  country,  may  range  over  five  hun- 
dred miles  in  a  year,-  entirely  leaving  their  original 
range.  Of  course,  these  sheep  can  only  be  driven  over 
a  "  free-grass  "  country,  and  on  such  a  country  they 
have  as  good  right  as  the  cattle  have,  though  often 
their  owners  fail  to  enforce  that  right  upon  the  range. 
One  of  these  great  flocks  of  sheep  coming  over  the 
native  range  of  a  local  band  of  cattle  will  eat  off  the 
grass  so  closely  that  the  cattle  will  leave  the  range  or 
starve  to  death  upon  it.  This  year  sheep  are  coming 
in  from  the  West  in  such  numbers  over  some  of  the  Wyo- 
ming free-grass  country  that  many  cattle  men  have 
shipped  their  cattle  out  of  the  country,  giving  up  their 
interests  and  seeking  other  range.  Yet  others  have 
sold  out  entirely  and  relinquished  the  business.  The 
farmer,  the  irrigator,  the  sheep  harder  have  been  fatal 
to  the  old  order  of  things  which  obtained  in  the  days 
when  all  the  range  was  free  grass,  or  even  the  days 
when  the  key  of  the  water  unlocked  the  wealth  of  the 
range.  More  and  more  the  cowman  himself  will  be- 
come a  farmer,  as  indeed  many  are  now.  More  and 
more  the  cowboy  will  become  a  farm  labourer.  Even 
to-day,  in  a  round-up  on  the  Wyoming  plains,  you  may 
see  as  many  overalls  and  jumpers  as  chaps  and  shirt 
sleeves.  Thus,  it  seems,  and  not  in  garb  of  silk  or  steel 
or  gold,  are  to  be  clad  the  builders  of  the  cities*  of 
Cibola. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

THE    DRIVE. 

EARLY  in  the  history  of  the  cowbo}7,  as  that  his- 
tory is  popularly  known,  there  came  from  the  crowded 
ranges  of  the  South  the  urgent  cry  for  a  market  and  the 
demand  for  additional  territory  out  of  the  empire  of  free 
grass.  It  was  in  the  stars  that  the  cattle  must  go  North. 
To  get  them  North  was  a  problem  in  transportation  to 
which  there  could  not  then  be  summoned  the  aid  of 
the  railroads.  The  cattle  must  walk  these  hundreds 
of  miles.  Hence  arose  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
phases  of  the  cowboy's  occupation.  He  became  a  wan- 
derer, an  explorer,  as  well  as  a  guide  and  a  protector. 
The  days  of  '67  in  the  cattle  drive  were  as  the  days 
of  '49  in  the  history  of  gold,  inaugurative  of  an  era 
full  of  rude  and  vivid  life.  Those  were  epoch-making 
times,  and  swift  and  startling  were  the  changes  which 
they  brought.  All  the  West  was  then  in  turmoil.  The 
inhabitants  of  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States  were  just 
beginning  to  learn  definitely  of  the  great  unsettled 
region  into  which  the  railroads  were  moving.  To  meet 
the  railroads  there  came  rolling  up  from  the  South  the 
great  herds  of  longhorns  over  the  trail.  "With  them 
came  the  cowboys,  a  news  gens,  reported  a  gens  Jiorri- 
bilis.  In  a  trice  the  trail  became  one  of  the  institutions 
of  the  West,  and  the  cowboy  became  a  character.  Prior 
to  the  days  of  the  drive  he  had  existed,  but  he  had  not 

135 


136  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

been  differentiated.  His  calling  had  not  been  special- 
ized, he  had  not  become  a  type.  The  trail  was  the 
college  of  the  cowboy.  In  all  the  lusty  life  of  the 
West  in  the  old  days  there  was  no  wilder  and  no 
rougher  school.  Out  of  it  came  a  man  whose  rugged 
and  insistent  individuality  has  for  a  triple  decade  ex- 
cited alike  popular  admiration  and  popular  misunder- 
standing. 

To-day  the  cattle  drive  is  one  of  the  occasional 
necessities  of  the  trade  all  over  the  cow  country,  but  it 
exists  only  in  modified  form.  The  cowman  drives 
to  his  shipping  point  the  beef  he  has  "  gathered  "  in 
his  fall  round-up,  or  perhaps  he  drives  some  grown 
cattle  from  one  range  to  another  a  hundred  miles  or 
so  distant.  At  times  one  cowman  purchases  young 
stock  cattle  from  another,  and  these  may  be  driven  to 
the  new  range.  In  one  way  or  another  a  drive  nowa- 
days may  perhaps  occupy  at  most  a  month  or  so.  Per- 
haps, again,  a  cowman  of  some  upper  country — say 
Wyoming — has  also  a  ranch  down  in  the  lower  country, 
such  as  the  Nations,  where  he  raises  his  own  stock 
cattle,  wrhich  he  wishes  to  put  on  his  upper  range.  He 
is  situated  perhaps  well  up  in  Wyoming,  and  a  hundred 
miles  or  so  from  the  nearest  railroad  point.  He  ships 
his  cattle  by  rail  from  the  Nations  to  this  railroad 
station,  and  then  drives  across  country  as  in  the  old 
days.  No  such  operations  as  these,  however,  compare 
in  extent  or  interest  with  the  old  drives  of  the  early 
days,  when  things  were  booming  in  the  cow  towns. 

Let  us  suppose  it  to  be  in  those  early  days  when 
the  herds  of  the  South  wrere  just  beginning  to  break 
from  their  confines  and  push  on  in  their  strange  and 
irresistible  migration  to  the  North.  Some  rancher 
has  learned  that  he  can  command  at  the  railroad  to 
the  north  of  him  a  price  far  in  advance  of  any  obtain- 


THE  DRIVE.  137 

able  in  his  own  country.  Perhaps  he  has  a  contract 
for  so  many  head  to  he  delivered  at  some  Northern 
point,  or  perhaps  he  drives  on  general  speculation  and 
in  search  of  a  buyer.  Perhaps  he  drives  his  own  cattle, 
or  his  own  and  some  of  his  neighbours',  or  perhaps  he 
purchases  additional  numbers  and  thus  embarks  in  a 
still  greater  mercantile  venture.  In  any  case  the,  chifif 
problem  of  his  venture  is  that  of  transportation.  The 
herds  are  to  cross  a  wild  and  unsettled  region,  un- 
mapped lands,  with  floods  to  swallow  them  up,  with 
deserts  in  which  they  may  be  lost  irretrievably.  There 
is  continual  risk  and  danger  of  great  loss  in  such  trans- 
portation, for  everything  depends  upon  the  control 
a  few  human  beings  may  be  able  to  maintain  over  thou- 
sands of  powerful  and  untamed  animals. 

These  wild  cattle  are  sold,  let  us  say,  upon  the 
hoof  as  they  run,  uninspected,  at  so  much  per  head. 
They  of  course  do  not  reach  the  dignity  of  being 
weighed,  but  are  only  counted.  The  seller  may  very 
likely  see  to  it  that  his  men  bring  in  many  of  the  poor- 
est specimens  to  be  counted  in  such  a  transaction,  but 
the  etiquette  of  the  trade  prevents  the  buyer  from 
taking  any  notice  of  such  a  fact.  On  the  range  a  cow 
is  a  cow,  and  may  be  worth  two  or  three  dollars.  A 
"  beef  "  (any  animal  over  four  years  of  age)  is  a  beef, 
and  may  be  worth  three  to  six  dollars.  A  "  dogy  "  or 
"  dobe  "  yearling  (a  scrubby  calf  that  has  not  wintered 
well)  is  such  a  yearling,  and  nothing  less  nor  more,  and 
may  be  worth  one  or  two  dollars.  It  is  a  day  of  large 
methods,  and  haggling  is  unknown.  It  is  jubilee  for 
the  man  of  the  depastured  range  who  thus  finds  offered 
him  a  price  for  cattle  which  have  been  bringing  scarce 
enoiiffh  to  pay  for  branding  them. 

The  riders  go  out  over  the  range  and  round  up 
the  cattle  by  tens  and  hundreds,  holding  them  most 


138  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  the  time  in  the  big  corrals  until  the  herd  is  made 
up  and  until  the  "road  branding"  is  done.  Then, 
after  they  are  counted  and  sorted,  the  bill  of  sale  gives 
the  buyer  his  right  and  title  and  his  permission  to  take 
these  cattle  off  the  range.  Perhaps  the  great  herd 
will  number  four,  five,  or  even  ten  thousand  head  when 
it  pulls  out  North  bound  over  the  trail.  Another  herd 
of  this  or  another  buyer  may  follow  close  behind  it, 
and  indeed  in  the  height  of  the  driving  season  there 
will  be  many  herds  strung  out  all  along  the  trail. 

To  handle  one  of  these  great  bodies  of  cattle  the 
drover  establishes  his  outfit  well  in  advance  of  the  start. 
His  horses  he  may  buy  on  the  spot  or  at  some  horse  ranch 
not  far  distant.  His  foreman,  or  "  boss  "  for  the  drive 
he  has  secured,  and  been  careful  in  his  choice  in  doing 
so.  The  foreman's  name  may  as  well  be  Jim  as  any 
other,  and  it  is  certain  that  in  his  skill  and  judgment 
and  faithfulness  the  owner  has  absolute  confidence, 
for  he  is  putting  into  his  hands  a  great  many  thousand 
of  dollars'  worth  of  property.  Besides  the  foreman 
there  are  a  dozen  other  cowboys,  most  of  them  Ameri- 
cans, for  Mexicans  are  not  fancied  for  this  work.  In 
addition  to  these  is  the  cook,  who  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  handling  of  the  cattle.  The  cook  may  be  a 
negro  or  a  Spaniard  or  a  "  Portugee,"  but  it  is  almost 
a  certainty  that  he  is  hard-featured  and  unlovely,  with 
a  bad  temper  and  perhaps  a  few  notches  on  his  knife 
handle.  If  he  were  not  "  hard  up  "  he  would  not  hire 
out  to  cook.  The  cowpunchers  very  likely  call  the 
cook  the  "  old  woman  "  or  the  "  old  lady,"  but  really 
the  language  of  a  drive  cook  is  something  no  lady 
would  think  of  using.  It  is  good  times  on  the  range, 
and  the  cook  may  receive  fifty  dollars  a  month  and  all 
of  his  own  cookery  he  can  eat.  The  cowpunchers  will 
have  wages  of  forty-five  to  sixty-five  dollars  per  month, 


THE  DRIVE.  139 

according  to  their  age  and  skill.  The  "  cavvieyard  " 
or  horse  herd  will  have  fifty  to  one  hundred  head  of 
horses  in  it,  and  will  be  under  the  charge  of  the  day 
herder  and  night  herder  (known  as  "  horse  wranglers  " 
in  the  North).  The  cook  has  a  wagon  or  cart,  which 
carries  himself,  his  supplies,  the  bedding,  and  a  few  of 
the  scant  necessaries  of  the  men.  The  latter  travel 
light  as  did  ever  any  cavalry  of  the  world.  A  tent  is 
something  unknown  to  these  men.  A  scant  blanket 
and  the  useful  slicker,  a  flip  of  the  roll,  and  the  cow- 
puncher's  bed  is  made.  The  saddle  is  his  pillow.  He 
may  look  freely  at  the  stars.  The  wolf  is  not  more 
wild,  the  broadhorn  more  hardy  than  he,  nor  either 
more  truly  a  creature  of  the  open  air. 

When  the  great  herd  of  "  coasters  "  moves  out  on 
its  Northern  journey  its  outset  is  attended  with  con- 
fusion. The  cattle  are  unruly  and  attempt  to  break 
back  to  their  native  feeding  grounds.  The  drive  outfit 
is  riding  day  and  night,  and  even  then  its  numbers 
and  its  efforts  may  not  be  sufficient.  A  second  out- 
fit perhaps  assists  the  first,  pushing  the  cattle  as  rapidly 
as  possible  over  the  first  hundred  miles  of  the  trail, 
tiring  them  so  that  they  will  be  willing  to  lie  down  and 
rest  when  nightfall  comes.  After  these  few  days  the 
second  outfit  returns  to  start  out  the  next  herd  in  a 
similar  way.  Ordinarily  it  may  take  a  week  or  ten  days 
to  break  in  the  herd  to  the  trail,  but  when  fairly  started 
the  cattle  will  travel  ten  to  fifteen  miles  a  day  easily 
and  without  much  urging,  and  in  the  second  month  of 
the  drive  will  have  so  well  learned  what  is  required  of 
them  as  to  march  with  something  like  military  regu- 
larity, following  certain  recognised  leaders  of  tacit 
election.  The  order  of  march  is  in  a  loosely  strung- 
out  body,  the  herd  in  motion  covering  a  strip  of  country 
perhaps  only  a  few  hundred  yards  in  width,  but  a  mile 


140  TUB  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

or  two  miles  in  length  from  front  to  rear  of  the  herd. 
The  stronger  animals,  or  those  least  footsore,  march 
in  advance,  the  weaker  falling  to  the  rear.  When  it 
is  seen  that  an  animal  can  not  stand  the  march,  it  is 
cut  out  from  the  herd  and  abandoned.  There  are  no 
close  figures  in  the  cattle  drive. 

While  the  herd  is  on  the  march  the  cowpunchers 
ride  at  intervals  along  its  flanks,  keeping  the  stragglers 
up  and  in  as  much  as  possible,  and  controlling  the 
cattle  by  that  strange  mastery  the  mounted  man  has 
always  had  over  the  horned  creatures  of  the  range. 
Why  the  cowboy  should  be  called  a  "  cowpuncher  "  is 
one  of  the  mysteries.  The  whip  of  the  States'  drover 
is  unknown  to  him.  He  guides  the  cattle  simply  by 
the  presence  of  himself  and  horse,  riding  at  them  when 
he  wishes  them  to  turn,  heading  them  back  when  he 
wishes  them  to  stop.  Each  man  on  the  drive  knows 
what  to  do,  and  the  duties  are  for  the  most  part  rather 
monotonous  than  urgent.  The  march  each  day  is  in 
much  the  same  order,  the  dusty  herd  strung  out  ahead, 
the  cook  wagon  and  horse  herd  following  on  behind. 
For  hours  and  days  the  herd  may  work  along  stolidly 
and  quietly,  with  no  sound  but  the  monotonous  crack! 
crack!  of  thousands  of  hoofs  and  ankle  joints  or  the 
rattle  of  the  long  horns  swung  together  now  and  then 
in  the  crowd  of  travel.  Or  there  may  arise  even  in 
daytime  that  thunderous  unison  of  the  clacking  feet 
and  the  continuous,  confused,  and  awful  rattling  of 
the  horns  which  tells  of  the  horrors  of  a  stamnede. 

By  nightfall  the  cattle  are  usually  weary  enough 
to  be  willing  to  stop,  and  need  little  instruction  when 
they  arrive  on  the  bedding  ground  which  has  been 
selected  by  some  forerunner.  Water  they  have  prob- 
ably had  more  than  once  during  the  day.*  In  the 

*  The  cattle  trail  moved  westward  in  Texas  as  the  plains 


THE  DKIVE. 

evening  they  graze  a  little,,  and  shortly  after  dusk  begin 
to  lie  down,  so  that  by  eight  or  nine  o'clock  they  may 
all  be  "  bedded  down  "  by  the  cowpuncher's  art  into 
a  fairly  compact  body  capable  of  being  watched.  After 
the  cook  has  served  his  supper  of  bacon,  beans,  camp 
bread,  and  coffee,  with  perhaps  a  very  few  items  of 
tinned  vegetables  and  of  course  no  fresh  vegetables 
except  the  inevitable  El  Paso  onion,  the  foreman  ar- 
ranges the  hours  for  the  night  herding.  Two  to  four 
men  are  put  out  at  the  same  time,  and  these  are  out 
for  two  to  four  hours,  all  of  these  details  depending  on 
the  condition  of  the  cattle  and  the  state  of  the  weather. 
Before  lying  down  for  his  share  of  sleep  at  night, 
the  cowpuncher  takes  care  of  his  horses.  This  is  not 
the  act  of  feeding  and  grooming,  be  sure,  but  has 

•were  cleared  of  the  Indians  and  as  the  country  settled  up.  The 
first  trail  ran  to  southeastern  Kansas  and  northwestern  Missouri. 
The  so-called  Shawnee  trail  ran  east  from  the  Red  River,  thence 
north  across  the  Arkansas  and  west  along  that  stream.  The 
"  Chisholm  trail "  was  farther  to  the  west,  over  the  Neutral  Strip. 
The  "  Pecos  trail "  was  still  farther  to  the  west,  in  New  Mexico, 
following  the  Pecos  River  north  into  Colorado,  and  crossing  the 
Arkansas  River  in  that  Territory.  The  latter  trail  was  used  only 
in  the  territorial  or  stock  cattle  drive.  There  was  an  attempt 
made  at  one  time  to  set  apart  a  strip  of  country  north  and  south, 
near  the  sixth  principal  meridian,  for  the  exclusive  purposes  of 
the  cattle  trail,  though  this  was  never  done.  The  "  Chisholm 
trail "  was  laid  out  by  a  half-breed  Indian  bearing  the  name  of 
Jesse  Chisholm,  who  drove  horses  and  cattle  to  the  western  parts 
of  the  Nations  as  early  as  1840,  before  any  one  else  dared  go  in 
that  country.  He  did  a  good  business  in  horses,  which  he 
bought  of  the  lower  plains  Indians,  the  latter  being  able  to  sell 
to  him  at  low  prices,  since  they  stole  all  their  horses  them- 
selves. He  often  had  long  trains  of  horses,  cattle,  and  goods, 
which  he  brought  up  over  the  best  country  for  grass  and  water. 
— E.  II. 


142  THE  STOtfY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

reference  to  that  possession  in  hand  which  is  the  only 
concern  the  cowpuncher  gives  himself  in  the  matter. 
He  usually  pickets  the  horse  he  intends  to  ride  during 
the  night,  and  hobbles  out  the  one  he  has  been  using, 
the  custom  of  hobbling  being  one  brought  down  from 
the  ancient  plains  days.  His  picket  pin  the  cow- 
puncher  carries  with  him,  for  much  of  the  time  he  is 
in  a  woodless  country.  His  horse  hobbles  he  either 
ties  at  his  saddle  or  flings  into  the  cook  wagon  while 
on  the  march.  These  hobbles,  as  used  in  the  early 
days,  before  buckle  and  chains  were  heard  of  on  the 
range,  were  made  of  rawhide,  that  staple  of  the  cow 
country.  A  wide  band  of  rawhide  was  passed  around 
the  fore  leg  of  the  horse,  and  the  ends  twisted  to- 
gether loosely  over  and  over,  one  end  being  left  a 
little  longer  than  the  other.  The  shorter  end  was  slit, 
and  upon  the  longer  end  there  was  fastened  a  long 
wooden  button.  This  longer  end  was  passed  about  the 
other  fore  leg  of  the  horse,  and  the  loop  for  this  leg 
secured  by  passing  the  wooden  button  through  the 
slit  in  the  shorter  end  of  the  hobble  and  turning  it 
crosswise  of  the  slit. 

To  guard  against  the  restless  condition  of  the  cattle, 
so  fatal  to  the  success  of  a  drive,  there  was  put  in 
practice  one  of  the  most  curious  customs  of  the  range, 
and  one  in  regard  to  which  there  exists  even  to-day 
something  of  diversity  of  opinion.  The  herd  was 
rarely  if  ever  left  out  of  the  hearing  of  the  human 
voice,  and  it  was  considered  a  necessity  at  night  to 
"  sing  to  the  cattle,"  as  the  peculiar  process  of  vocal- 
ization was  termed.  The  cattle  when  bedded  down 
were  timid  and  suspicious  to  a  degree,  and  the  sudden 
appearance  of  any  strange  object  might  set  them  off 
in  a  run.  They  might  take  fright  at  the  dim  form  of 
one  of  the  herders  coming  up  in  the  night,  though  if 


THE  DRIv.  143 

they  knew  it  was  the  herder  they  would  not  be  fright- 
ened but  reassured,  through  that  vague  and  ill-under- 
stood feeling  of  dependence  these  half-wild  creatures 
certainly  had  for  their  human  masters.  The  night 
herder  in  riding  about  the  bedding  ground  always  kept 
up  a  low  humming  or  singing,  to  let  the  cattle  know 
of  his  presence,  and  the  cowboy  who  could  not  or 
would  not  sing  was  inadequate  in  his  profession.  The 
"  hymns  "  were  sometimes  of  sacred  air  and  profane 
words,  and  sometimes  of  compounds  of  both,  but  it 
was  certain  that  some  sort  of  this  music  was  in  course 
of  rendition  throughout  the  night.  When  one  watch 
went  in  to  sleep  and  another  set  of  men  came  on  duty 
the  new  men  in  riding  up  to  the  cattle  always  prefaced 
their  approach  with  this  odd  psalmody  of  the  plains. 
Let  us  suppose  that  our  friend  the  cowpuncher  is 
called  from  his  slumbers  at  midnight  to  take  his  turn 
at  watching  the  cattle  on  a  bedding  ground  along  the 
trail.  He  arouses  himself  from  his  hard  couch  on  the 
ground  and  goes  after  the  horse  which  he  has  kept 
picketed  as  close  at  hand  as  practicable.  If  the  weath- 
er has  been  threatening,  he  has  perhaps,  in  common 
with  every  other  man  of  the  outfit,  kept  his  best  horse 
saddled  ready  for  sudden  call.  If  the  weather  is  mild, 
he  cinches  up  his  unwilling  and  sulky  steed  and  at 
once  starts  for  the  edge  of  the  herd.  The  air  of  the 
high  plains 'is  chilly,  and  a  tenderfoot  would  need  an 
overcoat,  but  the  cowboy  probably  does  not  even  but- 
ton his  loose  coat  at  the  neck,  and  his  flannel  shirt  is 
hardly  caught  the  tighter  at  the  throat  when  he  rolls 
out  of  his  blankets  to  take  the  saddle.  His  slicker 
is  tied  at  the  cantle  of  his  saddle.  Sleepily  but 
methodically  he  takes  up  his  round,  calling  to  the  cat- 
tle as  he  comes  up  to  the  herd.  He  rides  slowly  around 
them,  sometimes  stopping  as  he  moves  about  the  edge 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  the  herd.  Each  gully  and  grassy  swale,  each  bit  of 
broken  ground  or  ragged  hillside  is  scanned  closely 
as  he  moves  about  in  the  dim  light.  This  may  be 
country  where  there  are  men  quite  willing  to  run  off 
a  few  head  of  cattle  or  to  create  a  stampede.  There 
may  be  Indians  about,  whose  demands  for  toll  have 
not  been  satisfactorily  settled,  and  who  are  not  averse 
to  making  a  little  trouble,  even  to  the  extent  of  a  quiet 
arrow  or  so.  Or  there  may  be  wild  animals,  whose 
presence  will  frighten  the  herd.  The  s^udden^ajj^ear- 
ance  of  a  wolf  on  the  outline  of  a  hill  may  bring  a 
hundred  steers  to  their  feet  with  snorts  of  terror.  The 
sharp  cracking  of  a  twig  may  cause  a  sudden  fright. 
It  is  of  record  that  the  appearance  of  the  full  moon, 
rising  between  the  two  peaks  of  a  cleft  hill  and  shining 
red  and  large  over  into  a  little  valley  that  had  been 
quite  dark  till  then,  once  caused  one  of  the  most  un- 
controllable of  stampedes.  The  aim  of  the  cowboy  is 
to  prevent  any  cause  of  fright  which  can  be  prevented, 
and  to  give  what  courage  and  comfort  he  can  of  his 
own  store  in  case  any  unusual  or  terrifying  circum- 
stances arise.  Timidity  relies  on  courage  always.  That 
thing  does  not  walk  the  plains  which  shall  terrify  this 
bold  soul,  born  and  bred  upon  the  range.  The  night 
has  no  secrets  for  him,  nor  the  day  any  terrors.  He  is 
not  afraid,  and  the  cattle  know  it.  He  is  the  guard 
and  protector,  and  they  know  it,  even  though  they 
may  fear  him.  So  on  and  around  he  rides  slowly,  hum- 
ming his  little  song,  now  a  sweet  one,  let  us  hope, 
often  not  a  good  one,  we  may  fear,  and  all  the  time 
he  keeps  his  eyes  open  for  anything  and  everything 
going  on  about  him.  Under  the  moon  or  the  stars  or 
the  black  sky,  he  fulfills  the  requirements  of  his  wild 
calling,  patiently  and  faithfully,  shirking  nothing  and 
fearing  nothing,  doing  his  duty  not  more  because  he 


THE  DRIVE.  145 

is  paid  to  do  it  than  because  he  would  not  feel  himself 
a  man  up  to  the  standards  of  his  calling  if  he  failed  to 
do  his  duty  in  every  detail. 

At  daybreak  the  camp  is  astir,  the  men  rolling  out 
of  their  blankets  to  the  cook's  cry  of  "  Grub  pi-i-i-le!  " 
The  hot  coffee  is  gulped  down  and  the  rude  fare  goes 
into  stomachs  well  able  to  withstand  it.  Ten  minutes 
later  the  outfit  is  in  the  saddle.  The  blanket  rolls, 
loose  hobbles  or  such  odds  and  ends  are  tossed  into 
the  cook's  wagon;  the  hobbled  horses,  which  have  not 
wandered  far  during  the  night,  are  caught  up,  and  each 
rider  saddles  the  horse  whose  turn  he  thinks  it  is  to 
carry  him,  the  others  going  into  the  horse  herd  for 
the  day.  The  sun  is  barely  up  when  the  long  line  of 
cattle  is  again  on  the  move,  slowly  working_jo  the 
nortjrward,  grazing,  walking  spasmodically,  stopping, 
or  plodding_steadily  along^according  tojthe  conditions 
of  grass  and  water.  Sometimes  it  is  necessary  to  push 
the  herd  sharply  along  to  reach  water,  for  on  the  trail 
the  cattle  need  water  more  regularly  and  more  often 
than  on  their  feeding  range,  where  the  cactus  may  give 
them  some  liquid,  and  where  their  blood  is  not  heated 
by  continuous  exercise.  If  water  is  found  often,  the 
cattle  will  drink  with  something  of  regularity  of  order 
and  in  safety,  but  if  there  has  been  a  long  and  thirsty 
march  there  may  be  a  horrible  crowding  stampede  to 
the  stream  or  water  hole,  and  many  of  the  weaker  ani- 
mals may  be  crushed  to  death. 

There  were  no  bridges  on  the  trail  of  the  old  drives, 
and  all  streams  had  to  be  crossed  by  wading  or  swim- 
ming, as  the  case  might  be.  Often  it  happened  that 
the  cattle  would  not  take  to  the  water,  and  sometimes 
it  was  hours  or  days  before  a  herd  could  be  got  across 
a  swollen  river.  The  most  difficult  thing  in  such  an 
emergency  was  to  get  the  leaders  of  the  herd  started 


146  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

into  the  water.  Once  that  was  done,  the  rest  would 
follow  without  further  trouble.  The  line  of  march 
for  this  indomitable  cavalcade  was  the  same  in  the 
water  as  upon  the  land.  As  upon  the  land,  the  cow- 
boys in  the  river  remained  at  intervals  along  the  flanks 
of  the  herd,  their  hardy  ponies  swimming  strongly 
under  them.  Sometimes  in  the  water,  as  upon  the 
land,  a  sudden  panic  would  seize  the  herd,  and  they 
would  fall  to  "  milling  "  in  the  water,  swimming  round 
and  round  helplessly,  to  drown  in  scores  if  no  remedy 
were  found.  Then  again  the  hardihood  of  the  range 
rider  was  called  upon.  Without  a  moment  of  thought 
or  hesitation  the  cowboy  spurred  his  swimming  horse 
into  the  thick  of  the  tossing  heads,  and  by  shouts  and 
blows  did  all  he  could  to  break  the  "  mill  "  and  get  the 
cattle  headed  properly.  Often  unhorsed  and  threat- 
ened with  death  among  the  plunging  "animals  in  the 
water,  he  was  forced  to  swim  out  as  best  he  could, 
sometimes  scrambling  upon  the  backs  of  swimming  cat- 
tle, sometimes  catching  a  floating  tail  and  impressing  it 
into  service  for  a  temporary  tow.  The  rope  of  the  cowboy 
came  into  full  play  in  these  exciting  and  perilous  epi- 
sodes. With  it  he  pulled  cattle  out  of  the  water  or  the 
quicksands  or  the  mud,  whether  they  wanted  to  come  or 
not,  the  fierce  little  ponies  seeming  to  know  as  well  as 
their  riders  what  was  needed,  and  exerting  a  power 
which,  thanks  to  the  heavy  and  well-cinched  saddle, 
was  something  remarkable  to  witness.  Both  horse  and 
man  had  enough  asked  of  them  at  such  seasons  of 
stress,  and  it  was  with  great  relief  that  the  trail  outfit 
saw  the  last  of  their  herd,  or  at  least  the  last  of  those 
left  alive  and  under  possession,  across  the  stream  and 
ready  for  the  further  march.  Sometimes,  at  such  a 
river  as  the  Platte,  on  the  north  drive  to  the  Terri- 
tories, there  wouTcl  be  a  dozen  herds  piled  up  on  the 


THE  DRIVE.  147 

river  shore  in  a  distressing  confusion,  from  which  the 
heart  of  a  States  drover  could  see  no  possible  extrica- 
tion; yet  patience  and  courage  of  the  cowpuncher  sort 
certainly  brought  each  herd  out  in  order,  with  only 
such  loss  as  the  river  inflicted.  The  eye  of  the  cow- 
boy was  keen  to  detect  the  brand  of  his  herd,  and  his 
pony  was  swift  and  the  rider  was  tireless.  So  the  great 
herd  worked  on,  always  to  the  North,  over  obstacles  of 
every  sort.  In  course  of  time  the  herd,  dusty,  footsore, 
perhaps  thin  of  flesh  and  reduced  in  numbers,  arrived 
at  its  destination.  This  might  be  far  up  on  the  north- 
ern range,  in  Wyoming  or  Montana,  or  it  might  be 
at  some  of  the  lurid  little  cow  towns  along  the  new 
railroad.  Perhaps  in  the  latter  case  the  owner  of  the 
herd  found  no  buyer  to  suit  him,  and  very  likely  he 
lost  money  after  all  his  weary  effort.  Sometimes  it 
was  necessary  to  hold  the  cattle  on  the  Kansas  range 
over  winter,  and  indeed  at  the  time  of  the  feeling 
against  Southern  cattle  on  account  of  the  dreaded 
Spanish  fever  which  they  brought  with  them,  there 
was  a  law  forbidding  the  importing  into  many  of  the 
Northern  States  anyJTexas  cattle  which  had  not  been 
"  wintered  "  on  a  Northern  range,  this  wintering  seem- 
ing to  destroy  the  germs  of  that  disease,  which  was  so 
fatal  to  Northern  cattle.  All  these  problems  were  new 
ones  for  the  Southern  drover,  but  he  and  his  cow- 
punchers  rapidly  adjusted  themselves  to  the  new  con- 
ditions, and  thus  the  stocking  of  the  great  open  ranges 
of  the  North  went  on,  the  herds  bringing  with  them 
the  guardians  who  were  to  become  inhabitants  and 
citizens  of  the  widening  range. 

It  was  a  curious,  colossal,  tremendous  movement, 
this  migration  of  the  cowmen  and  their  herds,  un- 
doubtedly the  greatest  pastoral  movement  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  It  came  with  a  rush  and  a  surge, 


148  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

and  in  ten  years  it  had  subsided.  That  decade  was  an 
epoch  in  the  West.  The  cities  of  Cibola  began.  The 
strong  men  of  the  plains  met  and  clashed  and  warred 
and  united  and  pushed  on.  What  a  decade  that  was! 
What  must  have  been  the  men  who  made  it  what  it 
was!  It  was  an  iron  country,  and  upon  it  came  men 
of  iron.  Dauntless,  indomitable,  each  time  they  took 
a  herd  North  they  saw  enough  of  life  to  fill  in  vivid 
pages  far  more  than  a  single  book.  They  met  the 
ruffians  and  robbers  of  the  Missouri  border,  and  over- 
came them.  They  met  the  Indians  who  sought  to  ex- 
tort toll  from  them,  and  fought  and  beat  them.  Worse 
than  all  these,  they  met  the  desert  and  the  flood,  and 
overcame  them  also.  Worse  yet  than  those,  they  met 
the  repelling  forces  of  an  entire  climatic  change,  the 
silent  enemies  of  other  latitudes.  These,  too,  they 
overcame.  The  kings  of  the  range  divided  the  king- 
dom of  free  grass. 

It  was  natural  enough  that  these  wild  fighting  men 
who  now  made  the  great  part  of  the  population  of 
the  West,  coming  as  they  did  from  all  quarters  of  the 
land,  living  in  camps  or  in  the  saddle,  living  in  a  land 
wherein  there  had  not  yet  been  lit  the  first  fire  of  a 
real  home,  and  where  the  hand  of  a  real  woman  was 
not  yet  known,  should  make  commotion  when  they  came 
to  the  end  of  the  trail.  It  is  no  wonder  there  wore 
wild  times  on  the  border  in  the  days  of  the  drive. 
Never  were  times  wilder  anywhere  else  on  earth  than 
they  were  in  the  ragged,  vicious  little  cow  town  of  the 
railroad  markets  and  the  upper  ranges.  There,  indeed, 
it  behooved  the  timid  man  to  hie  him  elsewhere  swiftly 
as  that  might  be.  Trouble  came  often  enough  when 
not  sought  for,  and  any  one  in  search  of  trouble  could 
find  it  with  surprising  ease.  On  the  trail  the  men  of 
an  outfit  usually  got  along  fairly  well  together,  being 


THE  DRIVE.  149 

held  together  with  the  friendship  of  common  motives 
and  mutual  interests;  nor  did  different  outfits  often 
go  to  war,  unless  there  had  been  infringement  upon 
rights  bound  to  carry  respect.  Of  course,  sometimes 
there  would  be  sudden  affrays,  and  many  are  the  un- 
marked graves  the  cattle  have  trodden  flat  along  the 
trail.  Thus,  it  is  reported  that  one  cowpuncher,  who 
was  spoken  of  as  being  "  too  particular  to  punch  cows, 
anyhow,"  had  trouble  with  the  cook,  who  was  a  surly 
fellow  and  apt  to  resent  any  imputation  upon  his  skill 
in  cookery,  though  there  seemed  a  general  consensus 
of  belief  that  he  could  not  cook.  The  cowpuncher 
made  some  objection  to  some  trifle  at  the  table,  and  the 
cook  caught  up  his  gun  to  kill  him  for  criticising  his 
bread  or  beans.  The  cowpuncher  then  killed  the  cook 
promptly,  and,  standing  over  him  as  he  lay  prone, 
remarked,  "  There,  d — n  you,  I  Jcnowed  you  couldn't 
cook!  "  In  this  rash  act  he  found  soon  that  he  had 
committed  a  crime  of  serious  nature  and  likely  to  bring 
serious  consequences.  It  was  pointed  out  to  him  that 
had  he  killed  any  other  man  of  the  outfit  it  would  not 
have  been  so  bad,  but  to  kill  the  cook,  even  though  he 
could  not  cook,  was  to  strand  the  entire  party  out  in 
the  middle  of  the  desert.  There  was  a  strong  disposi- 
tion to  lynch  the  offender  for  this;  but  the  foreman, 
who  was  a  generous-hearted  man,  overruled  the  sen- 
tence of  the  outfit,  and  condemned  the  cowpuncher 
to  cook  for  the  party  for  the  rest  of  the  way  up  the 
drive — a  punishment  which  is  said  to  have  brought 
remorse  not  only  to  the  offender  but  all  the  rest  of  the 
party. 

It  was  not  often  that  such  quarrels  arose  on  the 

cattle  drive  among  men  who  should  have  been  friends, 

and   if   there   was   a   hidden   grudge   it   was   usually 

kept  smouldering  for  the  time.    In  the  railroad  town, 

11 


150  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

on  the  other  hand,  a  quarrel  offered  was  a  quarrel 
begun,  and  once  begun  it  was  not  far  to  its  ending. 
Many  and  many  are  the  border  tales  one  may  hear 
even  to-day  in  the  nourishing  little  Western  cities 
which  once  had  the  vivid  honour  of  being  cattle  towns. 
Abilene,  Kansas,  was  one  of  the  most  famous  of  these 
markets  of  the  early  days,  and  at  that  point  alone  a 
whole  fund  of  yellowback  literature  of  a  too  truthful 
sort  might  even  now  be  collected.  One  story  will 
serve  to  illustrate  the  conditions  of  those  times,  taken 
as  it  is  from  actual  life  at  the  height  of  the  cow  trails. 
It  seems  that  there  was  a  Texas  cowpuncher,  whose 
name  we  need  not  mention,  who  had  conceived  himself 
injured  in  honour  by  another  of  his  profession,  and 
who  had  spent  the  day  in  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  find 
the  latter  in  order  to  call  him  to  account.  Failing  in 
this,  he  at  length  concluded  to  retire  for  the  night, 
and  went  to  his  room  in  a  certain  hotel  once  famous 
as  a  cattle  men's  resort.  This  hotel  was  a  long  building, 
of  pine  boards,  constructed  in  the  most  flimsy  manner, 
the  bedrooms  being  built  on  each  side  of  a  long  hall, 
with  partitions  between  them  of  thin  and  ill-fitted 
lumber,  which  therefore  afforded  but  little  privacy. 
Everything  said  in  one  room  was  heard  in  the  other 
rooms.  As  the  aggrieved  cowpuncher  sat  upon  the 
side  of  his  bed,  he  having  disrobed  and  prepared  to  go 
to  sleep,  he  heard  voices  farther  down  the  hall,  in  the 
third  room  from  his,  and  recognised  the  voice  of  his 
enemy,  who  may  or  may  not  have  made  some  slighting 
allusion  to  himself.  The  offended  one  at  any  rate  did 
not  pause  to  consider  consequences  to  others  than  his 
enemy.  He  seems  to  have  remembered  that  the  shape 
of  the  little  bedrooms  was  the  same  throughout  the 
series  along  the  hall,  and  that  the  position  of  the  bed 
was  the  same  in  each.  He  presumed  that  his  enemy 


THE  DRIVE.  151 

was  at  that  moment  sitting  upon  his  bed,  as  he  himself 
was  in  his  own  room.  Without  further  thought,  he 
picked  up  his  six-shooter  and  carefully  aimed  along 
what  he  considered  to  he  the  proper  line  to  strike  the 
man  whose  voice  he  heard.  He  fired,  and  the  bullet, 
after  passing  through  three  of  the  thin  partitions, 
struck  the  man  in  the  body  and  killed  him  instantly. 
The  shooter  fled  from  the  building  in  sudden  fear 
and  remorse,  and  appeared  upon  the  street  clad  in 
nothing  but  his  undergarments.  He  at  once  struck  to 
the  southward,  headed  for  Texas  in  his  blind  impulse 
of  seeking  safety.  He  travelled  on  foot  nearly  all 
night  clad  as  he  was  and  barefoot,  hardship  unspeak- 
able for  a  native  rider.  In  the  morning  he  met  a  man 
who  was  riding  toward  him  on  the  trail.  This  man  he 
covered  with  his  pistol  and  forced  to  dismount  and 
strip.  Taking  his  clothing  and  his  horse  from  him, 
the  Texan  dressed  himself,  mounted  and  rode  away. 
From  that  day  to  this,  so  far  as  known,  he  has  never 
been  heard  from  again.  In  some  distant  corner  of  the 
cattle  country  there  may  perhaps  have  been  a  morose 
cowpuncher,  who  never  spoke  about  his  past,  and  whom 
the  etiquette  of  the  range  forbade  questioning  as  to 
his  earlier  history. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE    KOUND-UP. 

SINCE  the  beginning  of  mankind's  struggle  with 
Nature  the  harvest  season  has  been  a  time  of  victory 
and  rejoicing.  At  that  time  man  unbends  his  back 
and  gives  thanks  for  the  reaping.  Then  come  the  days 
of  final  activity,  of  supreme  exertion,  the  climax  of 
all  that  has  a  material,  an  allegorical,  or  spectacular 
interest  in  the  yearly  war  for  existence.  The  round-up 
is  the  harvest  of  the  range.  Therefore  it  is  natural  that 
its  customs  should  offer  more  of  interest  than  those 
of  any  other  part  of  the  year.  It  were  matter  of  course, 
also,  that  features  so  singular  and  stirring  in  their 
intense  action  as  those  of  the  cowman's  harvest  should 
be  known  and  blazoned  about  for  the  knowledge  of 
those  living  elsewhere  than  upon  the  cattle  fields. 
Writers  and  artists  have  seized  upon  this  phase  of  the 
cattle  man's  life,  and  given  it  so  wide  a  showing  that 
the  public  might  well  have  at  least  a  general  idea  of 
the  subject.  Yet  perhaps  this  general  idea  would  be 
a  more  partial  and  less  accurate  notion  than  is  de- 
served by  the  complicated  and  varied  business  system 
of  the  cattle  harvest.  If  we  would  have  a  just  idea  of 
the  life  and  character  of  the  man  who  makes  the 
round-up,  we  should  approach  the  subject  rather  with 
a  wish  to  find  its  fundamental  principles  than  a  desire 
to  see  its  superficial  pictures. 

152 


THE  ROUND-UP.  153 

The  system  of  the  round-up,  while  it  retains  the 
same  general  features  over  the  whole  of  the  cow  coun- 
try, and  has  done  so  for  years,  is  none  the  less  subject 
to  considerable  local  modifications,  and  it  has  in  many 
respects  changed  with  the  years  as  other  customs  of  the 
industry  have  changed;  for  not  even  the  ancient  and 
enduring  calling  of  the  cowman  could  be  free  from  the 
law  of  progress.  The  Western  traveller  who  first  saw 
a  round-up  twenty  years  ago  would  not  be  in  position 
to  describe  one  of  to-day.  Sectional  differences  make 
still  other  changes  which  should  be  regarded.  Yet  all 
these  round-ups,  of  the  past  and  of  the  present,  of  the 
North  and  of  the  South,  ground  themselves  upon  a 
common  principle — namely,  upon  that  desire  for  abso- 
lute justice  which  has  been  earlier  mentioned  as  a  dis- 
tinguishing trait  of  the  cowman  and  the  trade  he  fol- 
lows. 

Eeverting,  as  we  must  continually  do,  to  the  early 
times  of  the  cattle  industry,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
back  in  the  days  of  water  fronts  in  the  dry  Southwest. 
Here  the  round-up  depended  upon  local  conditions, 
just  as  it  has  ever  since.  If  the  ranchero  had  practically 
all  the  water  near  him,  he  had  also  practically  all  the 
cattle,  and  the  harvest  of  the  calves  was  merely  a  large 
going  forth  on  his  part  and  marking  his  own  increase 
without  being  troubled  with  that  of  others.  This 
feature  would  be  apt  to  continue  more  in  a  wide  and 
sparsely  pastured  country  than  in  one  where  the  cat- 
tle of  many  owners  were  mingled  together  on  the 
range.  Again,  if  we  follow  up  the  history  of  the  range 
until  we  come  upon  the  time  of  large  individual  hold- 
ings of  land  under  fence,  we  must  see  how  similar  was 
the  round-up  then  to  that  of  the  dry  country;  for  here 
man  had  done  what  Nature  had  done  in  the  other 
case,  and  had  separated  the  owner's  cattle  from  those 


154  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  his  neighbours.  It  remained,  therefore,  much  a 
matter  of  an  individual  and  not  a  community  harvest; 
whereas  the  community  harvest  is  the  one  which  the 
average  man  has  in  mind  when  speaking  of  a  round- 
up. The  free-grass  round-up  is  the  one  where  the 
ingenuity,  the  energy,  and  the  resources  of  the  cowman 
are  best  to  be  seen,  his  way  of  carrying  out  his  funda- 
mental purpose  of  justice  to  all  men  on  the  vast,  un- 
fenced,  and  undefined  farm  of  the  range,  where  the 
thousands  of  cattle,  belonging  to  dozens  of  owners, 
each  animal  wild  as  a  deer  and  half  as  fleet,  are  all 
gathered,  counted,  separated,  and  identified  with  a 
system  and  an  accuracy  little  short  of  the  marvellous. 
"Until  one  has  seen  such  a  round-up  on  the  open  plains 
he  has  neither  seen  the  cowboy  at  his  best  nor  seen 
the  fruition  of  the  system  that  he  represents. 

The  time  of  the  calf  round-up  is  in  the_spring, 
after  the  grass  has  become  good'*5ndafterthe  calves 
have  grown  large  enough  for  the  branding,  this  time 
being  later  in  the  North  than  in  the  South  by  perhaps 
thirty  days.  Naturally,  upon  a  country  where  the 
open  range  is  common  property  there  can  not  be  a 
round-up  for  each  man  who  owns  cattle  running  at 
large.  Naturally,  also,  there  must  be  more  than  one 
round-up  to  gather  all  the  cattle  over  the  vast  extent 
of  a  cattle  region.  Here  the  system  of  the  cowman 
is  at  once  in  evidence.  The  State  cattle  association 
divides  the  entire  State  range  into  a  number  of  round- 
up districts — let  us  say  into  a  dozen  or  two  dozen  dis- 
tricts. Each  district  conducts  its  own  round-up,  this 
under  the  working  supervision  of  some  experienced 
man  who  goes  by  the  name  of  the  round-up  captain 
or  round-up  v^s,  QJ?^  who  is  elected  by  vote  of  the 
cowmen  of  his  district.  Under  this  general  officer  are 
all  the  bosses  in  charge  of  the  different  ranch  outfits 


THE  ROUND-UP.  155 

sent  by  men  having  cattle  in  the  round-up.  In  the 
very  outset  of  the  levy  for  these  troops  of  the  range  the 
idea  of  justice  is  apparent.  Not  all  men  own  equal 
numbers  of  the  cattle,  so  it  would  be  obviously  unfair 
to  ask  all  to  furnish  an  equal  amount  of  the  expense 
and  labour  in  the  total  of  the  round-up  duties.  The 
small  outfits  send  a  few  men,  the  large  ones  more,  the 
aim  being  that  of  fairness  to  all  and  hardship  to  none. 
The  wholejorce  of  a  small  modern  round-up  may  not 
exceed  thirty  men.  In  one  of  the  large  Southern 
round-ups  there^bnce  met  at  the  Doul}le_J\)rks  of  jjic 
Brazos  nearly  three  hundred_jmen.  All  these  men 
metlifbne  ranch,  and  it  is  proof  of  the  largeness  of 
the  cattle  life  and  its  methods  that  they  were  all  well 
fed  and  entertained  by  the  owner  of  the  ranch.  Now- 
adays perhaps  a  ranch  of  ordinary  size  will  send  two 
messes  of  men  of  half  a  dozen  or  more  men  each  as  its 
pro  rata  in  the  round-up,  each  mess  with  its  own  cook, 
and  perhaps  with  two  wagons  to  each  mess  to"  carry 
along  the  tents  and  supplies.  In  the  old  days  no  tents 
were  taken,  and  the  life  was  rougher  than  it  is  now, 
but  of  late  years  the  cowboy  has  grown  sybaritic.  With 
each  ranch  outfit  there  must  of  course  be  the  proper 
horse  herj,  "  cavoy,"  or  "  cavvieyah.  Each  man 
will  have  eight  or  ten  horses  forTTis  own  use,  for  he 
has  now  before  him  the  hardest  riding  of  the  year. 
•All  these  horses,  some  of  them  a  bit  gay  and  frisky 
in  the  air  of  spring,  are  driven  along  with  the  ranch 
outfit  as  its  own  horse  herd,  the  total  usually  split 
into  two  herds,  each  under  the  charge  of  one  or  more 
herders,  known  as  "horse  wranglers" — an  expression 
confined  to  the  Northern  ranges,  and  bearing  a.  cer- 
tain collegiate  waggishness  of  flavour,  though  the  ori- 
gin of  the  term  is  now  untraceable.  There  are,  of 
course,  night  wranglers  and  day  wranglers,  it  being  the 


156  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

duty  of  these  men  to  see  to  it  that  the  horse  herd  is 
kept  together  and  at  hand  when  wanted  for  the  work. 

Sometime  toward  the  middle  of  May,  let  us  say, 
all  these  different  outfits  leave  their  home  ranches  and 
head  for  the  rendezvous  of  the  round-up.  The  open- 
ing date  of  the  round-up  is  known,  and  the  different 
outfits,  big  and  little,  move  in  so  as  to  be  on  hand  a 
few  days  tSeftJfe'  the  beginning  of  the  work.  It  may 
be  imagined  what  a  scene  must  be  this  general  gather- 
ing of  the  cow  clans,  how  picturesque  this  assemblage 
of  hardy,  rugged  men  fresh  from  their  wild  life  and 
ready  for  the  still  wilder  scenes  of  activity  which  are 
before  them!  There  may  be  fifty  men,  perhaps  five 
hundred  horses  at  the  main  camp,  and  of  the  total  there 
is  not  one  animal  which  does  not  boil  over  with  the 
energy  of  full-blooded  life.  The  men  rejoice  as  those 
should  rejoice  who  go  forth  to  the  harvest,  the  horses 
exult  because  spring  has  come,  with  its  mysterious  stir- 
ring airs.  The  preliminary  days  are  passed  in  romp 
and  frolic,  perhaps  at  cards  and  games.  Each  man, 
however,  has  his  own  work  outlined,  and  makes  his 
preparations  for  it.  His  personal  outfit  is  overhauled 
and  put  in  repair.  His  rope  has  a  touch  to  "  limber  it 
up,"  his  straps  are  softened,  his  clothing  put  in  order. 
If  he  has  a  wild  horse  in  his  string,  he  takes  the  oppor- 
tunity of  giving  it  a  few  lessons  of  the  sort  which 
make  up  the  cow  pony's  education.  Swiftly  the  grand 
camp  of  the  round-up  settles  into  the  system  of  vet- 
erans, and  all  is  rapidly  made  ready  for  the  exacting 
duties  which  are  to  follow. 

The  total  country  to  be  covered  by  the  round-up 
is  perhaps  a  strip  forty  by  one  hundred  miles  in  extent. 
The  direction  in  which  the  round-up  will  work  will 
depend  upon  the  habits  and  the  ranging  of  the  cattle 
at  that  time,  there  being  no  hard  and  fast  rules  possi- 


THE  ROUND-UP.  157 

ble.  Local  conditions  determine  also  the  location  of 
the  several  round-up  camps,  which  of  course  must  be 
where  grass  and  water  are  abundant  and  where  there 
is  room  to  handle  the  herds.  At  times  there  may  per- 
haps be  five  thousand  or  more  head  of  cattle  in  one 
body,  though  the  numbers  are  more  likely  to  run  not 
over  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  at  a  time.  The 
tendency  nowadays  is  all  in  favour  of  smaller  round- 
ups, other  herds  being  gathered  after  the  first  is 
worked,  and  the  size  of  each  assembling  depending  of 
course  upon  local  circumstances.  It  may  be  better  to 
drive  in  all  the  cattle  from  a  large  strip  of  country  to 
a  good  working  ground,  or  it  may  be  more  convenient 
to  make  several  herds  and  frequent  changes  of  camp. 
The  round-up  captain  knows  the  men  who  are  to 
work  under  him,  and  from  among  these  he  appoints 
lieutenants  who  shall  have  each  a  certain  band  of  men 
under  him  while  covering  the  country.  Advice  is 
given  to  each  party  as  to  what  direction  it  shall  take 
after  the  start  is  made,  all  these  arrangements  being 
made  so  as  not  to  give  special  inconvenience  to  the 
men  of  the  respective  ranch  outfits,  who  will  naturally 
wish  to  camp  with  their  own  mess  wagon.  On  the 
day  before  the  start  the  little  army  of  the  plains  has  its 
campaign  all  planned  and  lying  out  before  it,  and 
each  man  knows  about  what  he  is  to  do.  On  the  night 
before  the  opening  day  the  cowpuncher,  if  he  be  wise, 
goes  to  bed  early  and  gets  a  full  night's  sleep,  for  not 
another  will  he  have  now  for  many  a  night  to  come. 
The  flickerings  of  the  cooks'  fires,  confined  in  their 
trenches  so  that  they  may  not  spread  and  so  that  their 
heat  may  be  well  utilized,  rise  and  fall,  casting  great 
shadows  upon  the  tent  walls  where  the  cowboys  unroll 
their  blankets  and  prepare  for  rest.  The  wind  sighs 
and  sings  in  the  way  the  wind  has  upon  the  plains. 


158  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

The  far-off  neigh  of  a  restless  pony,  the  stamp  of  a 
horse  picketed  near  by,  the  shrilling  yell  of  the  coyote, 
and  all  those  further  vague  and  nameless  noises  which 
pass  in  the  air  at  night  over  the  wild  range  come  to 
the  cowboy  as  unneeded  and  unnoted  lullaby.  His 
sleep  is  deep  and  untroubled,  and  to  him  it  seems 
scarce  begun  when  it  is  suddenly  ended  amid  the 
chorus  of  calls,  groans,  and  shoutings  of  his  compan- 
ions answering  at  the  gray  of  dawn  the  call  of  the  un- 
easy round-up  boss,  who  sings  out  his  long  cry  of 
"  Roll  out!  roll  out!  "  followed  by  the  shrill  call  of 
the  cook,  "  Grub  pi-i-i-le!  "  The  cook  has  been  up  for 
an  hour,  and  has  made  his  fire  perhaps  of  cottonwood 
limbs,  perhaps  of  the  lois  des  vaches — natural  fuel,  of 
the  buffalo  on  the  cattle  range.  This  early  morning 
summons  the  cowpuncher  dare  not  disobey,  for  the 
etiquette  of  the  round-up  is  strict  enough  in  its  way. 
It  is  but  dim  daylight  at  best  when  the  camp  has 
kicked  off  its  blankets  and  risen  up  shoutingly.  In 
a  few  moments  it  has  broken  into  a  scene  of  wild  but 
methodical  activity.  In  much  less  than  an  hour  after 
the  first  call  for  boots  and  saddles  the  whole  strange 
cavalcade  is  under  way,  and  behind  it  the  cooks  are 
breaking  camp  and  pitching  the  plunder  into  the 
wagons  for  the  move. 

Through  the  wet  grass  at  break  of  dawn  come  the 
rush  and  pounding  of  many  hoofs,  and  ahead  of  the 
swinging  ropes  of  the  wranglers  gallops  the  horse  herd 
as  it  is  brought  in  for  the  morning  saddling.  To  re- 
ceive it  a  hasty  corral  is  made,  after  the  rude  but 
efficient  ways  of  the  range.  This  corral  is  but  a  single 
rope  stretched  about  the  sides  of  an  irregular  parallelo- 
gram, or  rather  it  is  made  of  several  single  ropes  united 
end  to  end.  Sometimes  the  corral  runs  out  from  the 
wheels  of  two  wagons,  the  ropes  being  supported  at 


THE  KOUND-UP.  159 

their  outer  ends  by  two  men,  who  swing  out  and  act 
as  living  gateposts,  leaving  open  a  gap  into  which 
the  horses  are  driven.  The  latter  will  not  attempt 
to  break  over  this  single  strand,  though  they  might 
well  do  so  had  they  not  learned  the  lesson  of  not  run- 
ning against  rope.  Sometimes  this  strange  corral  is 
made  by  stringing  the  rope  from  the  saddle  horns  of 
several  of  the  laziest  and  solemnest  of  the  old  saddle 
horses,  which  thus  serve  as  the  fence  posts,  this  way 
being  more  common  at  midday  or  out  in- the  open 
country,  where  a  short  pause  is  made  by  the  outfit. 
Sometimes  a  wagon  wheel,  a  horse,  and  a  man  or  two 
may  all  be  doing  duty  as  posts  for  the  corral,  it  being 
the  peculiarity  of  the  cowman  to  use  what  means  are 
best  and  nearest  to  his  hand  in  all  his  operations.  The 
handling  of  the  horse  herd  offers  some  of  the  most 
picturesque  features  of  the  round-up,  and  the  first 
morning  of  the  round-up  is  apt  to  furnish  some  thrill- 
ing bits  of  action  at  the  horse  corrals  when  the  men 
are  roping  their  mounts,  pulling  them  unwilling  forth 
and  cinching  the  great  saddles  firmly  upon  their  bulg- 
ing and  protesting  sides.  In  the  early  times  the  cow 
horse  was  a  wilder  animal  than  he  is  to-day,  but  in 
these  degenerate  days  a  wild  horse  is  not  thought  de- 
sirable, and  indeed  many  or  most  of  the  cow  horses 
are  not  roped  at  all  for  their  saddling.  The  cowboy 
simply  goes  into  the  corral,  picks  out  his  horse,  and 
throws  his  bridle  over  its  neck  with  a  most  civilized 
disregard  for  the  spectacular. 

After  the  handling  of  the  horse  herd  and  the  sad- 
dling up,  the  little  army  swiftly  gets  into  motion  and 
wings  out  widely  over  the  plains,  the  men  sometimes 
shouting  and  running  their  horses  in  prodigal  waste 
of  energy,  for  all  is  exuberance  and  abounding  vigour 
on  these  opening  days  in  spring.  Each  little  party 


1GO  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

spreads  out  under  its  commander  until  each  man  be- 
comes a  commander  for  himself,  imposing  upon  him- 
self the  duty  of  driving  before  him  to  the  agreed  meet- 
ing place  ahead  all  the  cattle  that  may  come  in  his 
line  of  march.  As  the  cowpuncher  thus  rides  out  into 
his  great  gray  harvest  field  he  sees  no  great  wealth 
of  horned  herds  about  him  or  before  him.  It  is  a  big 
country,,  and  the  many  thousands  of  cattle  make  but  a 
small  showing  upon  it.  Did  they  seem  numerous  as  in 
an  Eastern  pasture,  the  range  must  surely  be  a  depas- 
tured and  impoverished  one.  Here  and  there,  scat- 
tered about,  out  beyond  where  the  horse  herds  have 
been  feeding,  there  may  be  a  few  little  groups  of  cattle. 
Out  farther,  upon  some  hogback  or  along  the  side  of 
some  coulee,  a  horned  head  is  lifted  high,  gazing  in 
astonishment  at  this  strange  invasion  of  the  range. 
The  animal  may  be  a  grade  longhorn,  though  now  the 
old  Texas  stock  has  practically  vanished  from  the  range. 
The  shorthorn  is  valued,  the  white-faced  Hereford 
still  more  popular,  since  it  is  hardy  and  quick  to  ma- 
ture. All  these,  one  by  one,  by  twos  and  threes,  and 
finally  in  fifties  and  hundreds,  the  keen-eyed  and  hard- 
riding  cowpuncher  starts  out  and  away  from  their  feed- 
ing ground  and  drives  on  ahead  of  him  toward  the 
meeting  place.  The  string  of  other  animals  running 
ahead,  perhaps  half  a  mile  to  one  side,  where  some 
other  cowpuncher  is  driving,  is  sure  to  be  noted  by  the 
cattle  near  to  him.  He  gives  a  shout  and  starts  to- 
ward them,  and,  true  to  their  gregarious  habits,  they 
start  on  the  run  for  their  companions  on  ahead,  this 
being  just  what  it  is  wished  they  should  do.  This 
herding  habit  of  the  range  cattle  is  the  basis  of  many 
of  the  operations  of  handling  them.  Thus  each  little 
coulee  and  draw,  each  ridge  and  little  flat  is  swept  of 
its  inhabitants,  which  all  go  on  forward  toward  where 


THE  ROUND-UP.  161 

the  long  lines  of  dust  are  beginning  to  converge  and 
mingle.  As  a  matter  of  course,  all  the  cattle,  big  and 
little,  cows,  calves,  and  steers,  are  included  in  the  as- 
sembling, and  are  driven  in  together.  The  driving 
is  not  the  work  of  a  novice,  but  yet  is  not  so  difficult, 
for  most  of  the  cattle  are  so  wild  that  they  run  at  the 
sight  of  a  horseman,  more  especially  if  they  be  of  the 
old  longhorn  breed,  and  all  the  cowboy  needs  to  do 
is  to  ride  hard  to  one  side  and  so  direct  their  flight. 
Other  cattle  join  those  running,  so  that  the  whole 
horned  populace  goes  in  and  along,  but  a  small  per 
cent  being  missed  in  the  round-up,  though  of  course 
it  is  not  possible  to  gather  up  every  individual  that 
may  be  ranging  wild  and  unobserved  in  the  vast  ex- 
panses of  the  open  plains. 

Thus,  later  in  the  day,  the  gatherings  of  the  indi- 
viduals and  of  the  separate  parties  meet  in  a  vast, 
commingling  multitude  of  cattle.  The  place  is  in  some 
valley  or  upon  some  plain  offering  room  for  handling 
the  herd.  Clouds  of  dust  arise.  The  sun  shines  hot. 
Above  the  immediate  shuffle  and  clacking  of  the  near- 
by cattle  comes  a  confused  and  tremendous  tumult, 
the  lowing  of  cows,  the  bawling  of  calves,  the  rum- 
bling bellows  of  other  animals  protesting  at  this  un- 
usual situation.  The  whirling  flight  of  the  cowboys 
on  their  many  different  quests,  the  neighing  of  horses, 
the  shouts  of  command  or  of  exultation — all  these 
wild  sounds  beat  upon  the  air  in  a  medley  apparently 
arising  out  of  bedlam,  and  all  these  sights  arise  from 
what  seems  to  the  unskilled  observer  a  hopeless  and 
irremediable  disorder.  Yet  as  matter  of  fact  each 
rider  of  all  this  little  army  knows  exactly  what  he  is 
about.  Each  is  working  for  a  definite  and  common 
purpose,  and  the  whole  is  progressing  under  a  system 
of  singular  perfection.  This  confusion  is  that  of  chaos 


162  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

falling  into  order.  The  guiding  and  controlling  mind 
of  man  will  subject  all  this  mighty  disorder  to  his  own 
ends.  These  great  horned  creatures,  outnumbering  a 
hundred  to  one  their  human  guards,  are  helpless  to 
escape  from  the  living  cordon  of  fearless  horse  and 
daring  rider.  Out  of  the  dust  and  heat  and  turmoil 
one  gathers  a  single  definite  thought,  evolves  a  single 
character.  The  yearly  climax  of  his  calling  has  brought 
into  vivid  view  the  cowboy  in  that  position  which  shows 
himself  and  his  profession  in  their  most  unique  and 
striking  form. 

Perhaps  a  couple  of  thousand  of  cattle  are  gath- 
ered in  this  herd  here  upon  a  little  flat  valley  a  mile 
or  so  across.  On  the  other  side  of  the  valley  are  lines 
of  willows  and  low  trees,  and  on  beyond,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  sun,  runs  the  shining  thread  of  a  river. 
Toward  the  shelter  of  the  trees  the  thin  blue  smoke 
of  the  camp  fires  is  arising.  Possibly  some  of  the 
cowpunchers  run  over  to  the  camp  to  snatch  a  bite 
to  eat,  for  the  work  of  the  cutting  out  has  not  yet 
begun.  The  milling  of  the  cattle  has  thrown  them  into 
confusion,  and  the  calves  are  separated  from  their 
mothers,  so  that  a  little  time  must  be  allowed.  A  calf 
does  not  always  know  its  own  mother,  but  no  mother 
mistakes  her  own  offspring.  This  is  the  second  basis 
of  the  cunning  handling  of  the  wild  herds.  The  cow- 
man has  the  cattle  of  the  range  all  together  now,  and 
knows  they  will  tend  to  hang  together  for  a  time  and 
not  separate.  He  knows  also  that  the  calves  will  run 
with  their  mothers,  so  that  the  brand  of  the  mother 
will  prove  the  ownership  of  the  calf.  Presently  the 
intense,  trying  work  of  the  cutting  out  will  begin,  in 
which  all  these  calves  will  be  sorted  out  and  labelled  in 
the  great  joint  inventory  of  the  range. 

At  this  stage  of  the  round-up  operations  there 


THE  ROUND-UP.  163 

again  comes  into  play  the  question  of  local  conditions. 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  locality  what  shall  be  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  cattle  to  be  separated,  and  this  again  is 
a  matter  which  has  been  subject  to  change  of  custom 
in  the  trade.  If  this  round-up  be,  for  instance,  in  one 
of  the  thickly  settled  districts  of  Montana,  no  atten- 
tion is  paid  to  any  but  the  calves  and  unbranded  cat- 
tle. There  is  no  attempt  to  sort  or  separate  the  dif- 
ferent herds  of  branded  cattle  belonging  to  different 
owners,  or  to  drive  back  a  given  owner's  cattle  toward 
his  range.  All  the  cows  and  calves  are  cut  out  from 
the  general  herd>  and  are  held  in  a  separate  body, 
the  rest  of  the  entire  herd  being  allowed  to  scatter  and 
depart  at  will  over  the  common  range.  The  calves 
are  then  taken  indiscriminately  from  this  cow  herd  and 
branded  duly  according  to  their  mothers'  brands. 

On  yet  other  portions  of  the  range  the  ranchmen 
may  not  be  so  numerous  or  the  ranges  may  be  larger. 
Perhaps  there  are  a  few  owners  whose  interests  are 
practically  the  same,  by  reason  of  the  ranging  habits 
of  their  cattle.  They  know  that  their  cattle  are  not 
apt  to  go  off  a  certain  range,  and  therefore  they  do 
not  trouble  themselves  to  keep  track  of  them.  But 
they  would  not  like  these  cattle  to  wander,  say,  one 
hundred  miles  from  home.  If  in  a  round-up  there 
should  be  found  cattle,  say,  of  five  or  six  different 
brands,  all  pretty  well  within  the  country  where  they 
belonged,  no  effort  would  be  made  to  separate  these. 
But  if  on  the  same  country  there  should  be  found  a 
number  of  cattle  of  some  outfit,  known  to  be  perhaps  a 
hundred  miles  from  the  range  where  they  belonged, 
it  would  be  part  of  the  duty  of  the  round-up  to  cut  out 
these  cattle  and  "throw  them  over"  to  the  proper 
range.  In  all  things  the  common  sense  of  the  cow- 
man governs.  Thus  it  may  happen  that  the  entire 


164:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

herd  of  a  certain  outfit  is  thus  cut  out  and  thrown 
over  without  a  single  calf  being  branded,  because  the 
cowman  knows  it  would  not  be  good  for  these  calves 
to  be  driven  perhaps  fifty  miles  or  so  immediately 
after  the  branding  and  other  operations  of  the  round- 
up. All  the  time  there  are  numbers  of  these  round- 
ups and  subround-ups  going  on,  as  the  necessities  of 
the  situation  demand.  Sometimes  the  big  corrals  of 
a  convenient  ranch  are  used.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that 
corral  work  was  once  more  common,  for  instance,  in 
certain  parts  of  Wyoming  than  it  is  to-day.  It  was 
known  that  organized  bands  of  cattle  thieves,  char- 
acterized by  the  cowmen  as  "  some  boys  who  were  a 
little  on  the  rustle,"  had  a  habit  of  using  these  cor- 
rals at  night  to  hold  together  the  bunches  of  calves 
they  were  running  out  of  the  country,  the  rustlers 
being  shrewd  enough  to  know  that  they  could  in  no 
better  way  render  tractable  a  bunch  of  calves  than  by 
keeping  them  a  few  nights  away  from  their  mothers, 
who  would  surely  run  them  off  during  the  night  if  all 
were  left  out  in  the  open  together.  It  thus  seeming 
that  the  ranch  corrals  were  being  used  in  the  robbery 
of  the  men  who  built  them,  the  latter  tore  them  down 
and  after  that  relied  upon  the  open  round-up.  The 
latter  form  of  the  round-up  work  is,  of  course,  the 
more  interesting,  and  we  shall  suppose  that  the  herd 
is  made  out  on  the  open  range  and  held  together  sim- 
ply by  the  force  of  horsemanship. 

It  having  been  agreed,  then,  what  sort  of  cattle 
are  to  be  cut  out,  the  work  of  separation  begins,  perhaps 
two  or  three  different  "  cuts  "  being  in  progress  at  the 
same  time,  each  of  these  "  cuts  "  being  held  at  a  dis- 
tance from  the  main  herd.  As  it  is  difficult  to  over- 
come the  disposition  of  an  animal  to  break  back  and 
join  its  fellows  in  the  main  herd  when  it  is  singled  out 


THE  ROUND-UP.  165 

and  driven,  it  is  customary  to  start  the  "  cut "  with 
some  sober-minded  old  cattle  which  are  willing  to 
stand  where  they  are  placed,  and  so  serve  as  a  nucleus 
for  the  growing  band,  the  cowboy  here  again  calling 
to  his  aid  the  habit  of  gregariousness  among  the  cattle. 
The  caljjjDranding  is  the  chief  work  of  the  round- 
up, and  it  wouTd  be  difficult  to  find  work  more  ex- 
acting and  exhausting.  The  cowpuncher  prepares  for 
this  deliberately.  When  he  goes  into  the  herd  to  cut 
out  calves  he  mounts  a  fresh  horse,  and  every  few 
hours  he  again  changes  horses,  for,  though  some 
horses  are  better  than  others  in  cutting  out,  there  is 
no  horse  which  can  long  endure  the  fatigue  of  the 
rapid  and  intense  work  of  cutting.  Before  the  rider 
stretches  a  sea  of  interwoven  horns,  waving  and  whirl- 
ing as  the  densely  packed  ranks  of  cattle  close  in  or 
sway  apart.  It  is  no  prospect  for  a  weakling,  but 
into  it  goes  the  cowpuncher  on  his  determined  little 
horse,  heeding  not  the  plunging  and  crushing  and 
thrusting  of  the  excited  cattle.  Down  under  the  heels 
of  the  herd,  half  hid  in  the  whirl  of  dust,  he  spies 
a  little  curly  calf  running,  dodging,  and  twisting,  al- 
ways at  the  heels  of  its  mother.  The  cowpuncher 
darts  in  and  after,  following  the  two  through  the  thick 
of  surging  and  plunging  beasts.  The  sharp-eyed  pony 
sees  almost  as  soon  as  his  rider  which  cow  is  wanted, 
and  he  needs  small  guidance  from  that  time  on.  He 
follows  hard  at  her  heels,  edging  her  constantly  to- 
ward the  flank  of  the  herd,  at  times  nipping  her  hide 
as  a  reminder  of  his  own  superiority.  In  spite  of  her- 
self the  cow  gradually  turns  out  toward  the  edge,  and 
at  last  is  rushed  clear  of  the  crush,  the  calf  follow- 
ing close  behind  her.  Very  often  two  cowpunchers 
work  together  in  the  operation  of  cutting  out,  this 
facilitating  matters  somewhat. 
12 


166  THE  STORY   OF  THE   COWBOY. 

Already  preparations  have  been  made  for  the  ani- 
mals cut  out.  The  branding  men  have  fire  and  fuel,  and 
irons  are  heated  to  a  cherry  red.  All  the  irons  of  the 
outfits  represented  are  on  hand  at  the  fire,  a  great  many 
of  them,  and  easily  to  be  confused  withal.  A  "  tally 
man/'  to  keep  record  of  the  calves  branded  to  each  out- 
fit, has  been  appointed  by  the  captain  to  serve  as  general 
clerk  of  the  round-up.  This  man,  of  course,  has  oppor- 
tunity to  favour  one  outfit  or  another  by  falsifying  his 
scores,  but  this  contingency  is  never  considered  in  the 
rude  ethics  of  the  range,  where  civilized  suspicion, 
known  as  conservatism,  has  not  yet  fully  entered.  The 
tally  man  is  usually  chosen  for  his  fitness  to  keep  these 
accounts,  or  perhaps  for  his  unfitness  to  do  other  work 
at  the  time.  Perhaps  there  is  some  oldish  cowman, 
or  some  one  who  has  been  sick,  or  who  has  been  hurt 
in  the  riding  of  the  previous  day,  and  who,  though 
not  fit  for  the  saddle,  will  do  for  the  book.  This  man 
acts  as  the  agent  of  all  the  outfits,  and  upon  his  count 
depends  each  owner's  estimate  of  his  season's  profits. 

As  the  cowpuncher  rushes  his  first  cow  and  calf 
clear  of  the  herd,  the  tally  man  stands  near  the  fire, 
sharpening  his  pencil  with  a  knife  disproportionately 
large.  Even  as  he  looks  over  toward  the  herd  there 
is  a  swirl  of  the  long  loop  which  has  hung  just  clear  of 
the  ground  as  the  cowpuncher  rode  out  into  the  open 
after  his  quarry.  The  loop  spreads  and  hisses  out 
into  a  circle  as  it  flickers  and  curves  about  the  cow- 
puncher's  head,  and  then  it  darts  out  and  down  like 
the  stoop  of  a  hawk.  The  unfortunate  calf  is  laid 
by  the  heels.  The  pony  stops  and  squats,  flaring 
back  upon  its  haunches,  its  mane  falling  forward  over 
its  gleaming  eyes,  its  sides  heaving,  its  quarters  al- 
ready gray  with  the  dust  of  the  herd.  There  is  a  twist 
of  the  rope  about  the  horn  of  the  saddle,  and  all  is 


THE  ROUND-UP.  167 

over  with  the  wild  life  of  the  curly,  bawling  calf.  It 
is  flipped  lightly  upon  its  side,  and  away  it  goes,  skat- 
ing along  over  the  sagebrush,  regardless  of  cuts  or 
bruises,  up  to  the  fire  where  the  irons  glow  and  where 
the  tally  man  now  has  his  pencil  sharpened.  Two 
men  seize  it  as  it  comes  into  their  field  of  operations. 
One  catches  it  by  the  ears  and  twists  its  head  side- 
ways, sitting  down  upon  it  so  that  the  little  creature 
can  not  move.  Another  man  casts  free  the  rope  and 
lays  hold  of  its  hind  legs,  pushing  one  far  forward  with 
his  own  foot,  and  pulling  the  other  back  at  full  length 
with  both  his  brawny  hands.  Helpless,  the  calf  lies 
still,  panting.  A  man  approaches  with  a  glowing  iron 
fresh  from  the  fire,  and  claps  this,  hissing  and  seeth- 
ing, upon  the  shrinking  hide.  A  malodorous  cloud  of 
smoke  arises  from  the  burning  hair.  The  iron  cuts 
quite  through  the  hair  and  full  into  the  hide,  so  that 
the  mark  shall  never  grow  over  again  with  hair.  A 
piteous  bawl  arises  from  the  little  animal — a  protest 
half  drowned  by  the  rush  of  mingled  sounds  about. 
Meantime  a  third  man  trims  out  with  a  sharp  knife  the 
required  slice,  if  any,  which  is  to  be  taken  from  the 
ear  or  dewlap  to  complete  the  registered  mark  of  the 
owner.  In  a  moment  the  calf  is  released  and  shoved 
to  one  side  to  rejoin  its  mother,  who  mutters  at  its 
injuries,  and  licks  it  soothingly.  The  calf  stands  with 
legs  spread  wide  apart,  sick  and  dizzy,  indisposed  to 
move,  and  shorn  for  many  days  of  much  of  its  f riski- 
ness. Mother  and  calf  alike  are  hustled  out  of  the  way. 
The  tally  man  calls  out,  "  Bar  Y,  one  calf."  Another 
calf  is  by  this  time  coming  skating  up  to  the  fire,  and 
again  the  iron  is  hissing.  Meantime  the  hubbub  and 
the  turmoil  increase,  until  all  seems  again  lost  to  chaos. 
Taut  ropes  cross  the  ground  in  many  directions.  The 
cutting  ponies  pant  and  sweat,  rear  and  plunge.  The 


168  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

garb  of  the  cowpuncher  now  is  one  of  white  alkali, 
which  hangs  gray  in  his  eyebrows  and  mustache. 
Steers  bellow  and  run  to  and  fro.  Cows  charge  on 
their  persecutors,  amid  confusion  and  great  laugh- 
ings.  Fleet  yearlings  and  young  cows  break  away 
and  run  for  the  open,  pursued  by  cowboys  who  care 
not  how  or  where  they  ride.  The  dust  and  the  low- 
ings  and  bellowings  and  runnings  wax  until  all  seems 
hopeless.  Yet  all  the  time  the  irons  are  busy,  all  the 
time  the  calves  are  sliding  up  to  the  fire,  all  the  time 
the  voice  of  the  tally  man  is  chanting,  and  all  the 
time  the  lines  of  figures  are  growing  longer  on  his 
grimy  pages.  The  herd  lessens.  The  number  of  calves 
visible  among  the  cattle  becomes  small.  Finally  the 
last  calf  is  cut  out  and  branded.  The  cowpunchers 
pull  up  their  heaving  ponies.  The  branding  men 
wipe  their  faces.  The  tally  man  again  sharpens  his 
pencil.  The  herd  is  "  worked."  It  may  scatter  now 
as  it  wills.  This  field  has  been  reaped.  It  remains 
now  to  go  on  to  other  fields. 

At  the  close  of  the  day's  work  the  men  have  less 
disposition  to  romp  and  play  pranks  than  they  had 
at  the  start  in  the  morning.  They  are  weary,  but 
weary  with  that  fatigue  readily  shaken  off  by  a  man 
in  fine  health  and  good  condition.  The  cooks  and 
teamsters  have  prepared  the  camp,  and  the  professional 
duties  of  the  cowpuncher  close  when  he  takes  off  his 
saddle.  Until  bedtime,  which  comes  soon  after  the 
evening  meal,  he  may  lounge  and  smoke.  The  cook 
has  prepared  abundance  of  food  for  these  hard-work- 
ing men,  whose  constant  exercise  in  the  fresh  air  gives 
them  good  appetites.  In  the  menu  of  the  round-up 
fresh  beef  is  sure  to  figure,  and  beef  of  the  best  sort 
running  in  the  herd.  It  makes  no  difference  whose 
brand  is  on  the  animal  desired  for  the  mess;  if 


THE  ROUND-UP.  169 

wanted,  it  is  forthwith  roped,  thrown,  and  butchered. 
In  the  old  days  no  account  was  kept  of  the  round-up 
beef,  but  of  later  days  the  owner  of  an  animal  killed 
for  beef  is  usually  credited  with  it  on  the  round-up 
books.  Sometimes,  when  time  and  opportunity  offer, 
the  cowpuncher  has  for  his  dinner  a  dish  probably  un- 
known elsewhere  than  on  the  range,  and  not  common 
there.  A  choice  bit  of  "  porterhouse  "  steak,  cut  thick, 
is  placed  between  two  steaks  of  similar  size  and  excel- 
lence, and  the  whole  buried  under  a  bed  of  hot  coals. 
In  this  way  the  middle  steak  retains  all  the  juices  of  its 
double  envelope,  and  offers  a  morsel  which  might  well 
be  appreciated  by  a  man  less  hungry  or  more  particu- 
lar than  the  tired  cowpuncher.  A  pound  or  so  of 
beef,  with  some  tinned  vegetables,  taken  with  a  quart 
or  so  of  coffee,  and  the  cowpuncher  is  ready  to  hunt 
his  blankets  and  make  ready  for  another  day.  He 
does  not  work  on  the  eight  hours  a  day  schedule,  but 
works  during  the  hours  when  it  is  light  enough  to  see. 
The  end  of  the  day  may  find  him  some  miles  from 
where  the  cooks'  fires  are  gleaming,  and  the  swift  chill 
of  the  night  of  the  plains  may  have  fallen  before  his 
jogging  pony,  which  trots  now  with  head  and  ears 
down,  brings  him  up  to  the  camp  which  for  him,  as 
much  as  any  place  on  earth,  is  home. 

Such  is  something  of  the  routine  of  the  round-up, 
and  one  day,  barring  the  weather  conditions,  is  like 
another  throughout  the  long  and  burning  summer, 
one  round-up  following  another  closely  all  through 
the  season.  The  work  is  a  trifle  monotonous  to  the 
cowboy,  perhaps,  in  spite  of  its  exciting  features,  and 
is  to-day  more  monotonous  than  it  was  in  the  past, 
before  the  good  old  days  had  left  the  plains  forever. 
In  those  times  the  country  was  wilder,  and  there  was 
more  of  novelty  and  interest  in  the  operations  of  the 


170  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

range.  To-day  the  great  plains  are  but  a  vast  pasture 
ground  for  the  cattle  belonging  to  the  community  of 
cowmen,  and  the  highly  differentiated  system  of  the 
round-up  progresses  as  a  purely  business  operation, 
whose  essential  object  is  the  establishment  of  the  in- 
dividual rights  of  each  member  of  that  community. 
The  methods  of  the  round-up  seem  of  necessity  rude 
and  inaccurate,  but  really  they  are  singularly  efficient 
and  precise.  The  skilled  labour  of  the  cowpuncher 
gives  to  each  man  that  which  belongs  to  him,  and 
nothing  more. 

It  is  a  curious  review,  that  which  passes  under  the 
eyes  of  the  tally  men  and  branders  during  the  calf 
harvesting.  Sometimes  a  calf  comes  up  with  a  cow 
whose  hide  is  a  network  of  confused  and  conflicting 
brands,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  tell  justly  whose 
property  she  is.  In  such  a  case  the  calf  is  not  branded 
at  all  to  any  owner,  but  is  thrown  into  the  association 
credit,  where  it  belongs  equally  to  all,  and  where  its 
value  will  be  equally  divided.  Sometimes  in  the  hurry 
of  the  work  a  calf  is  branded  with  the  wrong  iron, 
and  is  thus  given  the  sign  of  a  man  to  whom  it  does 
not  belong.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  puzzling  proposi- 
tion to  the  cowpuncher,  for  the  brand  is  something 
which,  to  use  the  cowpuncher's  phrase,  does  not  "  come 
out  in  the  washin'."  Yet  the  remedy  is  very  simple. 
Another  calf  is  "  traded  back  "  for  the  calf  wrongly 
branded,  the  proper  brand  of  the  former  calf  being 
placed  upon  the  "  traded  "  calf.  Of  course,  this  leaves 
two  mismatched  calves  on  the  range,  whose  brands 
do  not  tally  with  those  of  their  mothers,  but  within 
the  year  time  will  have  equalized  the  error,  for  the 
calves  will  have  left  their  mothers,  and  the  one  will 
probably  be  worth  about  as  much  as  the  other. 

Mingled  with  such  questions  as  these  during  the 


THE  ROUND-UP.  171 

branding  operations  are  always  the  complex  ones  of 
strays  and  Mavericks.  Sometimes  a  stray  cow  is  found 
during  the  round-up  bearing  the  brand  of  a  m^n  for- 
eign to  that  round-up  district,  or  one  not  represented 
in  the  round-up.  The  increase  of  this  animal  is 
branded  with  the  brand  of  its  owner,  who  has  been 
no  party  to  the  transaction  at  all,  but  who  has  been 
safe  under  the  system  .of  the  round-up.  In  the  case 
of  Mavericks  found  during  the  round-up,  a  like  intelli- 
gent and  just  method  obtains.  Eoughly  speaking,  an 
animal  must  be  a  yearling  to  be  a  Maverick,  and  on 
some  ranges  this  rule  is  laid  down,  though  really  a 
Maverick  becomes  such  at  the  time  when  it  ceases  to 
follow  the  cow  and  begins  to  shift  for  itself.  If  it  is 
missed  in  the  first  round-up  of  its  life,  it  falls  under 
the  rules  or  laws  governing  the  handling  of  Maver- 
icks, such  rules  offering  considerable  local  variations. 
On  some  ranges  of  Wyoming,  for  instance,  the  cowmen 
have  agreed  lines  establishing  the  borders  of  their 
respective  ranges,  and  a  cowman  may  brand  for  his 
own  a  calf  running  on  his  range  and  not  following 
any  cow.  This  right  is  merely  one  of  comity  among 
the  local  ranchers,  and  one  which  it  is  not  expected 
will  be  abused.  Indeed,  the  comity  goes  still  further, 
showing  yet  more  clearly  the  interdependence  and 
mutual  confidence  of  the  cowmen.  If  after  the  round- 
up a  rancher  finds  a  neighbour's  calf  unbranded,  but 
following  the  cow  upon  his  own  range,  he  brands  the 
calf  with  the  owner's  proper  brand,  and  not  with  his 
own.  This  is  simply  a  matter  of  individual  honesty. 
The  cowman  knows  that  his  neighbour  will  do  as 
much  for  him.  Each  ranch  keeps  its  own  separate 
tally-book  in  this  way,  and  these  are  exchanged  at 
the  end  of  the  season,  so  that  each  man  gets  what 
belongs  to  him,  no  matter  where  it  may  have  wan- 


172  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

dered,  and  no  matter  whether  he  ever  sees  it  again 
or  not.  It  has  been  elsewhere  mentioned  that  on 
some  parts  of  the  range  all  the  Mavericks  are  sold  at 
auction  before  the  beginning  of  the  round-up  (always 
to  some  resident  cowman  who  is  known  to  be  responsi- 
ble). In  this  case,  when  a  Maverick  is  found  in  the 
round-up  it  is  dragged  to  the  fire — perhaps  by  two 
ropes,  for  it  is  big  and  lusty — and  has  put  upon  it  the 
"  vent  brand "  of  the  association,  thus  securing  an 
abstract  of  title  which  it  is  to  carry  with  it  through 
life,  and  which  will  hold  good  in  any  cattle  market 
of  the  land. 

It  may  readily  be  seen  how  honest  and  how  ex- 
pert must  be  the  men  who  carry  out  so  intricate  a  sys- 
tem. It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  brands  do  not 
show  so  distinctly  upon  hide  as  they  do  upon  paper, 
and,  of  course,  it  must  be  remembered  that  a  range 
cow  may  carry  more  than  one  brand,  and  perhaps  a 
"  vent  brand "  or  so,  if  she  has  changed  ownership 
before.  Here  again  there  may  be  exceptions  arising 
out  of  local  conditions.  For  instance,  if  a  herd  of 
cattle  is  brought  from  a  far  Southern  range  to  one  in 
the  North,  where  that  brand  is  not  met  and  is  not  re- 
corded, it  is  not  always  the  case  that  the  owner  will 
have  these  animals  counterbranded;  for  it  is  known 
that  no  confusion  will  arise  if  they  are  left  as  they 
are,  and,  of  course,  the  fewer  brands  an  animal  car- 
ries the  easier  it  is  to  tell  whose  it  is.  It  is  justice, 
and  justice  by  the  shortest  and  most  practical  route, 
which  is  the  desire  of  the  cowman,  whether  that  imply 
the  branding  of  a  Maverick  or  the  hanging  of  a  cattle 
thief. 

After  the  calf  round-up  comes  the  beef  round-up, 
and  this,  too,  may  be  called  the  cowman's  harvest,  or 
his  final  harvest.  The  beef  round-up  may  begin  in 


J5 

c3 
g) 


THB    •  y 

UNIVERSITY 
OF 


THE  ROUND-UP.  173 

July  or  August,  and  perhaps  it  may  be  conducted  by 
the  joint  efforts  of  two  districts  instead  of  one.  The 
joint  outfit  acts  under  much  the  same  system  of  gath- 
ering up  the  cattle  as  has  been  described  for  the  calf 
round-up.  All  the  cattle  of  the  range  are  gathered  in 
great  herds,  and  the  latter  are  handled  as  during  the 
calf  round-up,  though  -the  operation  is  somewhat  sim- 
pler. Only  the  mature  or  fatted  animals  are  cut  out 
from  the  herd,  the  rest  being  left  to  scatter  as  they 
like.  The  separated  number  goes  under  the  name 
of  the  "  beef  cut/'  and  this  "  cut "  is  held  apart  and 
driven  on  ahead  from  place  to  place  as  the  round-up 
progresses,  the  beef  herd  thus  growing  from  day  to 
day  until  all  the  range  has  been  worked.  The  herd  is 
then  driven  in  by  easy  stages  to  the  shipping  point  on 
the  railroad,  where  it  is  perhaps  held  until  the  arrival 
of  the  herd  from  the  adjoining  district,  so  that  the 
shippers  may  be  reasonably  sure  they  have  in  all  the 
beef  fit  for  shipment  from  their  ranges.  Then  the 
long  train  loads  of  cattle  go  on  to  the  great  markets, 
and  the  work  of  the  ranchman  proper  is  done  for  the 
season.  Perhaps  in  the  shipment  of  beef  there  may 
be  a  few  animals  picked  up  on  the  range  during  the 
beef  drive  which  belong  to  some  owner  or  owners  not 
represented  in  the  outfits.  Such  animals,  if  fit  for 
shipment  as  beef,  are  driven  along  with  the  main 
herd  and  shipped  and  sold  without  the  owners'  knowl- 
edge, the  money  being  returned  to  the  owners  in  due 
time  through  the  inspectors  at  the  markets.  Obviously 
this  is  better  than  allowing  these  animals  to  run  wild 
and  unutilized  as  strays  upon  the  range,  of  no  profit 
to  the  owners  or  any  one  else.  The  common  sense 
and  the  fairness  of  the  cowman's  system  prevail  on 
the  beef  round-up  as  in  the  harvesting  of  the  calves. 
So  perfect  is  this  great  interdependent  system  of  the 


174      THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

round-up  on  the  main  cattle  ranges  of  to-day  that  the 
ranchmen  trust  to  it  almost  entirely  for  the  determin- 
ing and  the  handling  of  their  yearly  product,  llange 
riding  is  now  nearly  done  away  with  in  some  of  the 
more  populous  districts,  the  cattle  ranging  in  common 
over  the  country  as  they  like,  with  no  efforts  made 
to  confine  them  to  any  given  range.  All  these  things 
are  modified  by  local  conditions,  and  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  ranching  cattle  is  becoming  modified  by  the 
advance  of  time.  To-day  the  rancher  uses  more  and 
more  feed  about  his  ranch.  He  raises  hay  for  his 
stock,  a  bit  of  grain  for  his  horses  in  winter  time,  or 
perhaps  he  buys  hay  or  grain  of  the  "  grangers  "  who 
are  moving  in  about  him.  Speaking  in  the  original 
and  primitive  sense,  this  is  not  range  work  at  all. 
The  cowman  proper  depended  solely  upon  the  stand- 
ing grass  for  his  cattle  food,  upon  the  saddle  for  the 
assembling  of  his  wealth,  upon  his  own  iron  for  the 
marking  of  it. 

If  it  be  now  obvious  what  is  the  intention  of  the 
cowman  in  the  round-up  and  what  the  method  by 
which  he  obtains  his  purposes,  we  shall  none  the  less 
fail  of  a  fair  review  of  this  business  system  if  we  lose 
sight  of  the  chief  actor  in  all  these  operations,  the 
cowpuncher  himself.  His  is  the  tireless  form  that  rides 
day  after  day  in  rain  or  shine  throughout  the  long 
season,  collecting  the  cattle  upon  their  wild  pasture 
ground,  and  his  the  undaunted  heart  to  meet  all  the 
hardships  of  one  of  the  hardest  callings  known  to  men. 
From  May  until  November  he  may  be  in  the  saddle, 
each  week  growing  gaunter  and  grimmer  and  more 
bronzed,  his  hair  and  mustache  becoming  more  and 
more  bleached  and  burned,  his  eye  perhaps  more  hol- 
low though  not  less  bright  and  keen.  If  he  be  tired, 
none  may  know  it;  if  he  be  sick,  it  shall  not  appear; 


THE  ROUND-UP.  1Y5 

if  he  be  injured,  it  must  not  be  confessed  until  con- 
fession is  unnecessary.  His  creed  is  one  of  hardi- 
hood, his  shibboleth  is  to  dare,  his  etiquette  is  not  to 
complain.  Such  doctrine  is  not  for  the  weak.  It  is 
no  place  for  a  timid  man,  this  grinding  crush  in  the 
middle  of  the  herd,  and  the  cowardly  or  considerate 
horseman  would  better  ride  elsewhere  than  in  the  mad 
and  headlong  cross-country  chases  of  the  round-up. 
The  goring  of  a  steer,  the  fall  from  a  pitching  horse, 
the  plunge  over  a  cut  bank,  the  crushing  of  a  limb 
in  the  press,  or  the  trampling  under  a  thousand  hoofs 
— such  possibilities  face  the  cowpuncher  on  the  round- 
up not  part  of  the  time,  but  all  the  time.  He  accepts 
them  as  matter  of  course  and  matter  of  necessity,  and 
with  the  ease  of  custom.  Yet  he  is  mortal  and  may 
suffer  injury.  If  the  injury  be  not  fatal,  he  accepts 
it  calmly,  and  waits  till  he  is  well  again.  If  a  round- 
up knows  a  burial,  it  is  not  the  first  one  which  has  been 
known.  Men  of  action  must  meet  fatality  at  times, 
and  other  men  of  action  will  have  small  time  to  mourn 
them.  The  conditions  of  life  upon  the  range  are  se- 
vere, so  severe  that  had  they  been  known  in  advance 
they  would  have  been  shunned  by  hundreds  of  men 
who  in  their  ignorance  thought  themselves  fit  for  cow- 
boys and  learned  later  that  they  were  not. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  so  hardy  and  healthy 
a  creature  as  this  cowpuncher  must  have  his  amuse- 
ments, even  at  his  times  of  hardest  work.  The  round- 
up is  by  no  means  a  succession  of  dreary  experiences, 
for  it  is  there  that  one  will  find  the  most  grotesque 
exhibitions  of  cowpuncher  vitality  and  cowpuncher 
merriment.  There  probably  never  was  a  round-up 
where  the  boys  did  not  rope  a  steer  for  some  ambitious 
cowpuncher  to  ride  bareback  for  a  wager.  This  feat 
is  not  so  easy  as  it  looks,  for  the  hide  of  a  steer,  or, 


176  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

worse  yet,  the  hide  of  a  big  fat  bull,  is  loose  and  roll- 
ing, so  that,  as  the  cowpuncher  would  say,  it  "turns 
plum  over  between  a  feller's  legs."  Sometimes  a 
yearling  or  a  runty  little  "  dogy  "  is  roped  for  this 
form  of  sport,  the  cowpuncher  wreathing  his  long  legs 
under  its  belly  to  its  intense  disgust  and  fright,  though 
he  probably  sits  it  safely  when  the  ropes  are  "  turned 
loose  "  in  spite  of  its  antics,  for  it  is  the  boast  of  a 
first-class  cowpuncher  that  he  can  "  ride  ary  thing 
that  wears  ha'r."  Sometimes  the  cowboys  enter  into 
competitive  tests  of  skill,  trying  to  see  which  man  can, 
alone  and  unassisted,  in  the  shortest  space  of  time, 
"  rope,  throw,  and  tie  "  a  full-grown  steer.  It  would 
seem  almost  impossible  for  one  man  to  perform  this 
feat,  yet  a  good  cowpuncher  will  do  it  so  smoothly 
and  swiftly  that  neither  the  steer  nor  the  spectator 
can  tell  just  how  it  happened.  Yet  another  little  sport 
on  the  round-up  is  sometimes  to  hitch  up  a  cow  and 
a  broncho  or  "  mean  "  horse  together  to  a  wagon,  the 
horse  jumping  and  plunging  over  the  cow  to  the  in- 
tense delight  of  these  rough  souls,  to  whom  the  wild- 
est form  of  action  is  the  most  congenial. 

It  is  taken  for  granted  that  all  the  men  engaging 
in  a  round-up  are  good  riders,  and  if  it  should  chance 
that  any  one  becomes  entangled  in  an  argument  with 
a  pitching  pony,  the  event  is  one  of  great  pleasure  to 
his  friends,  who  gather  about  him  and  give  him  en- 
couragement of  the  cowpuncher  sort,  with  abundant 
suggestions  as  to  how  he  shall  ride  and  much  insist- 
ence that  he  must  "  ride  him  fair."  If  the  cowpuncher 
is  thrown,  he  is  sure  to  get  more  jeers  than  sympathy, 
but  it  is  his  business  not  to  be  thrown.  Nowadays  the 
horse  herd,  always  one  of  the  picturesque  features 
about  the  round-up,  is  losing  some  of  its  old  interest 
with  the  gradual  passing  away  of  the  habit  of  bucking 


THE  ROUND-UP.  177 

or  pitching  among  the  range  horses.  The  horse  herd 
is  to-day  much  graded  up,  as  are  the  herds  of  cattle, 
and  the  modern  cow  pony  may  be  quite  a  respectable 
bit  of  horseflesh.  It  is  apt  to  be  a  more  solid  and 
"  chunky  "  animal  than  the  old  Spanish  pony, '  just 
as  the  cowboy  himself  is  apt  to  be  a  more  bulky  man 
than  the  first  cowpunchers  who  came  up  the  Trail. 
One  may  note  yet  other  changes.  At  the  strictly  mod- 
ern round-up  of  to-day  one  will  see  few  leather 
"  chaps,"  few  heavy  hats  with  wide  leather  bands,  few 
bucking  horses,  and  no  "guns."  If  we  would  study 
the  cowpuncher  we  must  do  so  soon,  if  we  wish  ever 
to  see  him  as  he  once  was  at  his  best;  and  if  we  would 
see  a  round-up  on  the  range  we  should  not  tarry  too 
long,  for  yearly  it  becomes  more  and  more  restricted, 
modified,  and  confined,  less  and  less  a  wild  gathering 
of  the  plains,  more  and  more  a  mere  barnyard  fixture. 
The  days  of  the  commonplace  have  come,  and  well  may 
we  mourn  the  past  that  has  gone  by. 

The  stirring  scenes  of  the  round-up,  the  rush  and 
whirl  of  the  cutting  out,  the  hurry  and  noise  of  the 
branding,  the  milling  of  the  main  herds,  and  all 
the  gusty  life  of  the  wild  melee  are  things  to  remem- 
ber as  long  as  one  lives,  and  they  readily  invite  the 
multifold  descriptive  efforts  that  have  been  given 
them.  Yet  aside  from  the  common  or  conventional 
pictures  there  may  arise  detached  ones,  some  perhaps 
from  out  of  the  past,  perhaps  wilder  and  more  pic- 
turesque than  those  we  may  easily  find  to-day  at  the 
focus  of  affairs  upon  the  range.  Memory  brings  up  a 
little  scene  far  down  in  the  dry  and  desert  region  of 
the  Neutral  Strip,  where  once  our  party  of  antelope 
hunters  crossed  the  range  where  a  round-up  was  in 
progress.  We  had  noticed  the  many  hoof  prints  of 
cattle  and  horses,  all  trending  in  a  certain  direction, 


178  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

and  guessed  the  cause  when  we  saw  the  long  lines  of 
dust  rising  and  stringing  out  on  the  hazy  and .  trem- 
bling horizon.  In  that  barren  and  flinty-soiled  region 
water  is  a  rare  thing,  and  he  who  does  not  know  the 
water  holes  for  the  country  a  hundred  miles  about 
would  far  better  do  his  antelope  hunting  elsewhere. 
Yet  we  knew  we  were  near  the  line  of  the  old  cattle 
trails,,  and  indeed  just  before  noon  one  day  fell  upon 
the  wide  parallel  lines  ground  out  of  the  hard,  gray 
soil  by  the  thousands  of  hoofs  that  had  crossed  the 
country  in  earlier  years.  Thinking  that  we  should 
thus  come  upon  water  at  some  time  either  that  day 
or  the  next,  we  followed  along  the  trail,  and,  as  luck 
had  it,  within  a  couple  of  hours  we  fell  upon  a  little 
pool  of  water  by  the  wayside.  It  was  a  very  badclish 
bit  of  water,  muddy,  discoloured,  trampled,  shallow 
at  best,  and  now  hardly  sufficient  to  fill  the  hoof  marks 
with  its  greenish-yellow  fluid  that  fairly  boiled  under 
the  downright  rays  of  the  sun.  Yet  it  was  water,  and 
such  as  it  was  we  were  glad  to  find  it,  since  it  was  the 
first  for  more  than  twenty-four  hours.  We  camped 
beside  it  joyfully,  feeling  that  now  all  the  trials  of  life 
were  past.  As  we  lay  there,  under  such  shade  as  the 
wagon  offered  on  the  blindingly  hot  day,  we  saw  a 
trail  of  dust  coming  from  the  line  of  hills  about  us, 
and  with  the  glasses  soon  made  out  a  squad  of  mounted 
men.  These  came  on  down  to  the  water  hole,  and  in 
time  were  joined  there  by  other  men  who  came  from 
various  directions.  The  party  was  the  mess  of  a  Strip 
outfit  that  had  been  out  all  day  rounding  up  cattle 
back  of  the  watering  place.  The  men  were  hot  and 
tired  and  covered  with  dust,  but  if  any  one  was  dis- 
posed to  grumble  he  kept  it  to  himself.  The  cook 
unfastened  the  tail-gate  of  his  wagon,  and  in  a  twin- 
kling had  a  kitchen  table  and  pantry  right  at  hand, 


^N 

SITYJ 

THE  KOUND-UP.  179 

with  flour  and  meat  within  reach.  Some  of  the  boys 
kicked  together  enough  of  the  abundant  prairie  chips 
• — the  only  fuel  within  sixty  miles  of  that  point — and 
soon  the  preparations  for  the  hurried  meal  were  in 
progress.  When  the  cook  wanted  water  for  his  coffee 
he  walked  to  the  pool — in  which,  by  the  way,  several 
dead  carcasses  were  lying — and,  picking  out  the  point 
where  the  water  seemed  clearest,  he  calmly  dipped  up 
his  coffeepot  full  and  returned  without  comment  to 
the  fire.  No  one  said  a  word  about  the  quality  of  the 
water,  which  really  was  of  a  sort  to  make  one  shudder 
at  the  memory  years  later,  and  if  the  coffee  was  not 
good  no  one  complained  of  it.  From  the  mess  box  the 
cook  produced  his  tin  dishes,  his  knives  and  forks,  and 
table  was  spread  without  cloth  flat  on  the  dusty  and 
hoof-beaten  soil.  The  heat  was  glaring,  and  in  it, 
without  suspicion  of  shade,  the  men  sat,  their  flannel 
shirts  covered  over  the  shoulders  with  the  white  dust 
of  the  plains,  their  broad  hats  pushed  back  upon  their 
foreheads  as  they  ate.  It  was  a  scene  for  some  better 
painter  or  writer  than  has  yet  appeared,  this  dusty, 
weather-beaten,  self-reliant  little  body  of  men.  Each 
face  of  the  circle  comes  to  mind  clearly  even  after 
years  of  time.  They  were  silent,  dignified  fellows, 
these  men,  not  talking  much  among  themselves  or  with 
us,  though  they  offered  us  of  what  they  had,  we  hav- 
ing apparently  convinced  them  that  we  were  not  "  on 
the  rustle/'  we  in  turn  sharing  with  them  what  our 
mess  box  offered,  as  it  happened  some  fresh  game, 
which  was  much  appreciated. 

Before  the  meal  began  each  man  unsaddled  his  horse 
and  turned  it  loose  upon  the  prairie,  where  it  first  went 
to  water  and  then  set  to  feeding  on  the  short  sun-burned 
grass.  When  it  came  time  to  leave  camp,  the  horses 
were  rounded  up  by  the  herder,  a  young  boy  not  over  fif- 


180      THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

teen  years  of  age,  whom  all  the  men  called  "  Kid."  In 
their  rough  way  they  seemed  fond  of  the  boy,  who  had 
evidently  shown  the  quality  demanded  on  the  plains, 
and  as  the  boy  gathered  up  his  horses  into  the  rope 
corral  made  by  two  or  three  cow  ponies  and  a  couple 
of  men  as  supports,  the  round-up  boss  looked  on  at 
his  businesslike  movements  with  approval,  and  re- 
marked aside  to  one  of  the  men,  "  That's  a  d — n  good 
kid  all  right."  To  which  the  other  replied  with  an  ap- 
proving grunt.  The  Kid  rounded  up  his  charges 
swiftly,  and  got  them  into  a  many-coloured  mass  of 
mingling  heads  and  tossing  manes  within  the  confines 
of  the  rope  corral,  after  which  the  work  of  roping 
the  mounts  followed.  The  Kid  begged  of  the  foreman 
the  privilege  of  doing  the  roping,  and  the  latter,  smil- 
ing in  rough  fashion,  gave  him  what  he  asked,  not 
laughing  at  his  failures,  but  giving  him  a  bit  of  ad- 
vice about  his  work  now  and  then  when  he  had  a  spe- 
cially wily  pony  to  capture  from  out  the  moving  and 
plunging  bunch  of  wild  range  horses.  It  was  a  good 
instance  of  the  chivalry  sometimes  shown  by  stronger 
natures  to  ones  weaker  or  less  skilled,  and  it  afforded 
also  a  good  example  of  the  development  of  the  cowboy 
from  youth  to  manhood,  from  inexperience  to  skill. 

Presently  each  man  had  out  his  mount,  and  had 
saddled  the  grunting  and  complaining  beast  in  the 
effective  fashion  of  the  plains.  There  was  a  little  mild 
pitching,  but  not  enough  to  interest  the  tired  cow- 
punchers.  In  a  trice  the  rope  corral  was  down  and 
the  ropes  coiled  at  the  saddle  horns  of  their  owners. 
The  cook  had  his  mess  wagon  slapped  shut,  and  the 
teamster  his  team  "  hooked  up."  The  men  rode  away 
as  silent  as  they  came,  the  foreman  and  some  of  those 
passing  most  closely  to  us  saying  as  they  rode  by, 
"So  long,  fellers."  JSTo  one  looked  back  as  he  rode 


THE  ROUND-UP.  181 

away,  for  this  would  have  been  a  bit  of  curiosity  not 
in  good  form  on  the  range.  They  passed  away  into 
the  edge  of  the  rim  of  hills,  and  we  saw  them  no  more. 
Such  is  one  picture  of  the  range,  and  it  shows  the 
cowboy  not  as  a  devil-may-care,  roistering  fellow,  full  of 
strange  oaths  and  uncouth  conduct,  but,  as  he  should 
perhaps  better  be  seen,  as  a  steady,  hard-working, 
methodical  man,  able  in  his  calling,  faithful  in  his 
duties,  and  prompt  in  their  fulfilment.  These  men 
were  grimy  with  toil  of  a  most  exacting  sort.  Their 
fare  was  coarse  and  common,  and  even  the  first  neces- 
sary of  comfort  was  denied  them.  They  were  rudely 
clad,  and  all  armed  to  the  last  item,  for  that  was  a 
country  where  arms  were  at  times  needful.  Yet  hard 
as  was  their  apparent  lot,  and  rude  as  they  who  shared 
it,  their  simple  and  uncomplaining  hardihood  and 
self-control,  their  dignity,  and  their  generous  conduct 
to  the  younger  member  of  the  party  left  a  lasting  im- 
pression— perhaps  a  good  one  of  its  kind — of  the  cow- 
boy as  he  is  in  actual  life  upon  the  range. 


13 


CHAPTER  X. 

DEIFTS    AND    STAMPEDES. 

THE  life  of  the  cowboy  in  the  early  days  of  the 
West  was  a  series  of  pictures  of  unusual  and  striking 
themes.  The  panorama  of  the  plains  dealt  with  no 
small  things  for  subjects,  not  the  turn  of  a  gown  nor 
the  poise  of  a  fan  nor  the  cast  of  a  gesture,  but  with 
things  of  gravity  and  import.  The  wars  of  man  with 
brute,  of  brute  with  Nature,  of  man  with  brute  and 
Nature  both,  such  were  the  topics  of  that  vivid  canvas. 
It  was  a  time  of  large  actions,  large  pictures. 

One  can  see  it  now,  the  great  cold  landscape  of  the 
cattle  range  in  winter.  It  is  a  picture  of  scant  lighting 
and  low  values.  The  monochrome  of  winter,  the  blue- 
gray  of  cold  desolation,  oppresses  it  all.  The  white 
hills  set  on  the  farther  edge  are  cold  and  bluish.  The 
sky  above  is  forbidding  with  its  sunless  gray.  The 
dust-grimed  snow  in  the  coulees  is  gray,  and  the  un- 
covered soil  of  the  wind-swept  hill  is  gray  and  cheer- 
less. Not  a  rift  of  light  falls  anywhere, .  not  a  touch 
of  sun  to  soften  the  hard,  metallic  composition.  All 
the  greens  were  gone  long  ago.  The  ragged  and 
clutching  hand  of  a  sagebush  reaches  up  in  despair 
from  the  uncompromising  desert,  but  it,  too,  is  gray — 
gray  with  the  withered  spirit  of  the  iron  earth  and 
icy  air.  The  sky  is  even  in  its  colours,  except  that 
now  and  then  there  scuds  across  it  a  strange  and 

182 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  183 

ominous  thing,  a  wisp  of  flying  white,  misplaced  and 
unregulated.  For  the  air  is  altogether  still.  No 
breath  waves  the  mane  of  this  pony  which  stands  on 
the  little  ridge,  its  head  up  and  its  gaze  bent  fixedly 
upon  the  far  horizon.  There  is  something  strange  in 
the  air.  It  is  not  so  extremely  cold,  but  the  silence 
is  so  deep,  so  startling.  Back  of  the  very  Gilence  there 
is  something,  something  of  portent,  of  warning.  Now 
and  again  a  long  shivering  moan  goes  across  the  plain, 
borne  from  no  one  knows  what  origin.  The  image 
of  dread  is  stalking  forth  this  day.  All  animate  nature 
feels  it.  Whither  are  going  these  great  gray  wolves, 
slouching  along,  their  tails  low,  their  heads  over  their 
shoulders,  looking  backward  at  this  unseen  pursuing 
thing?  They  do  not  trouble  the  cattle  now,  nor  do 
the  cattle  fear  them  as  they  pass  through.  What,  then, 
is  it  that  the  cattle  dread,  so  that  they  sniff  and  snort 
and  toss  their  heads,  looking  wildly  toward  the  north 
as  did  this  pony  now?  Written  on  this  inscrutable  dull 
sky  there  must  be  some  awful  sight  invisible  to  human 
eyes.  These  wild  creatures  of  the  plains  see  it.  They 
feel  the  dread.  They  know  their  weakness  to  meet 
this  coming  thing.  They  moan,  the  note  of  despair 
in  their  voices.  They  start  now  and  then  and  run 
swiftly  for  a  short  distance,  then  turn  and  come  back, 
pitching  their  heads  high  and  bellowing.  They  lower 
their  heads  and  shake  them,  and  mutter  hoarsely, 
with  their  muzzles  near  the  ground,  emitting  their 
breath  in  sharp  puffs. 

Look!  The  breath  of  the  cattle  has  grown  white. 
It  shines  like  fresh  steam  in  the  air.  A  moment  ago 
the  air  was  warm.  And  now  that  weird  white  scud 
flitted  again  across  the  sky,  across  the  earth  rather, 
low  down,  flying  like  some  wraith  of  the  mountains. 
Back  there,  upon  the  horizon  where  the  cattle  have 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

looked  so  long,  there  arises  a  tiny  cloud  of  white, 
soft,  fleecy,  innocent  as  the  garb  of  a  babe.  Alas!  it 
is  the  shroud  of  the  range.  It  is  the  vestment  of  death 
for  thousands  of  these  creatures  here! 

It  comes,  this  little  cloud,  rising  and  growing  and 
spreading  as  though  it  were  some  vast  curtain  drawn 
quickly  up  and  forward.  Before  it  run  long,  ragged 
hissings  in  the  air,  and  on  the  edge  of  these  hissings 
fly  always  these  scuds  of  the  sky,  little  venomous  spirits 
of  fury,  as  they  may  now  plainly  be  seen  to  be.  With 
the  mutterings  of  the  gathering  cattle,  which  now 
crowd  together  in  the  blind  wish  for  aid  and  comfort, 
there  blends  the  first  low  voice  of  the  storm,  a  far-off 
sighing  wail,  of  cadence  at  first  indicative  of  anything 
but  malice.  This  voice  rises  and  then  falls  and  is  silent 
for  a  moment.  It  rises  again,  nearer  and  changed  in 
import.  It  dominates  the  mingled  voices  of  the  herd, 
now  crowded  together,  their  feet  scuffling,  their  heads 
thrown  high  and  confusedly.  Again  the  storm  speaks, 
this  time  very  near,  and  as  it  falls  a  great  sigh  goes 
over  the  breast  of  Nature,  the  sigh  for  that  which  is 
to  happen.  It  is  the  last  warning,  as  useless  as  the 
others.  The  storm  has  crept  on  until  it  is  sure  of  its 
prey.  There  is  a  whirring,  rasping  crash  as  the  blades 
of  the  wind  meet  and  sweep  on,  and  then  a  wall  of  icy 
white  smites  the  shivering  beasts  as  they  stand  hud- 
dled and  waiting  for  that  which  they  know  is  doom! 

On  the  narrowed  horizon,  leaning  forward  as  they 
ride  and  coming  to  the  herd  as  fast  as  their  horses 
can  bear  them,  are  two  figures,  the  men  of  the  line 
camp  nearest  to  this  spot.  If  they  can  head  the  cattle 
into  the  broken  country  beyond  perhaps  they  can  find 
shelter  enough  to  stop  the  drift.  If  they  start  straight 
down  before  the  wind,  nothing  can  stop  them  till  they 
reach  the  first  fences  many  miles  below.  It  will  be 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  185 

the  emptying  of  the  range!  Once  under  the  hills  be- 
fore the  drift  begins,  and  perhaps  there  will  be  shelter 
enough  to  enable  the  cattle  to  live  through  the  storm. 
Perhaps  they,  too,  can  live  through  it  in  some  way; 
they  have  not  paused  to  ponder  how.  Well  enough 
they  know  that  anything  they  do  must  be  done  at  once. 
Well  enough  they  know,  perhaps,  that  every  human  re- 
gard for  their  own  safety  would  take  them  just  the 
other  way,  back  to  the  little  dugout  in  the  bank  which 
they  have  left.  But  at  least  they  will  try  to  save  a  part 
of  the  herd  which  has  formed  here.  They  must  be 
young  men.  Old  hands  would  know  that  when  the  bliz- 
zard has  set  in  there  is  no  power  on  earth  that  can  stop 
the  drifting  of  the  cattle. 

And  now  the  storm  bursts  with  a  blinding,  smoth- 
ering wave  of  white,  fine  snow,  driven  to  atoms  by 
the  flat  wind  that  hurls  it  on.  This  poudre  of  the 
north  cuts  like  a  set  of  knives  revolving  on  the  skin. 
No  man,  no  creature  can  face  it.  The  stings  of  the 
thousands  of  whips  smite  unceasingly,  all  this  under 
the  exhaust  of  the  storm,  which  steals  away  the  breath 
so  that  one  must  turn  down  wind  to  live.  The  air  has 
grown  icy  cold  at  once.  All  around  the  world  is  now 
blotted  out.  The  eye  strikes  a  continuous  dancing, 
glittering  whirl  of  particles  of  ice,  which  confuse  and 
bewilder  with  their  incessant  glinting  flight.  All 
sense  of  direction  is  lost  at  once.  There  is  but  one 
direction,  and  that  is  with  the  wind.  The  ground 
itself  is  almost  gone.  The  mountains,  the  hills,  the 
ridges,  the  coulees  have  all  disappeared.  Only  close  at 
the  feet  of  the  horses  and  cattle  can  one  see  a  bit  of 
earth,  this  veiled  by  the  suffusing  white  breath  of  the 
animals,  turned  into  vapour  on  the  instant  that  it 
strikes  the  arctic  air. 

At  first  the  cattle  turn  their  backs 'to  the  wind, 


186  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

and  so  stand  huddled  and  motionless,  the  little  calves 
pressing  deep  into  the  mass  of  the  shivering  creatures 
and  bleating  piteously.  In  a  few  moments  the  whole 
herd  is  covered  with  a  blanket  of  white.  The  two 
men  who  are  now  up  with  the  herd  strive  to  break 
apart  this  blanket  of  white,  riding  along  the  edges 
with  bent  heads,  seeking  to  open  out  the  cattle  so  that, 
they  can  get  them  moving.  It  is  useless!  The  white 
veil  shuts  down  too  sternly.  The  men  can  no  longer 
breathe.  Their  eyes  are  blinded  by  the  stinging  riffs 
of  fine  ice.  They  are  separated  in  the  storm.  A  shout 
is  answered  by  a  shout,  but  though  the  one  ride  to- 
ward the  other  as  best  he  may  he  can  not  find  him 
now,  for  ever  the  voice  calling  seems  to  shift  and  evade 
as  though  the  spirits  used  it  mockingly.  Crack!  crack! 
comes  the  note  of  the  six-shooter,  but  how  small,  how 
far  away  it  is!  Again  and  again,  and  again  also  the  an- 
swer! These  two  men  have  not  lost  their  heart.  They 
will  yet  find  each  other.  They  will  turn  the  herd,  they 
two  alone,  here  on  the  wide,  white  plain,  in  this  mys- 
tery of  moving  white!  But  where  was  the  last  shot? 
It  sounded  half  a  mile  away.  It  might  have  been  a 
hundred  yards. 

There  comes  a  mightier  wail  of  the  wind,  a  more 
vindictive  rush  of  the  powdery  snow.  All  trace  of 
the  landscape  is  now  absolutely  gone.  The  cowboy 
has  wheeled  his  horse,  but  he  knows  not  now  which 
way  he  heads.  The  hills  may  be  this  way  or  that.  A 
strange,  numb,  confused  mental  condition  comes  to 
him.  He  crouches  down  in  the  saddle,  his  head  droop- 
ing, as  he  raises  his  arm  yet  again  and  fires  another 
shot,  almost  his  last.  He  dreams  he  hears  an  answer, 
and  he  calls  again  hoarsely.  The  scream  of  the  wind 
and  the  rumbling  of  the  voices  of  the  cattle  drown 
out  all  other  sounds.  He  is  in  with  the  herd.  His 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  187 

partner  is  in  with  it  too.  But  neither  he  nor  they  both 
will  ever  turn  or  direct  this  herd.  This  he  knows  with 
sinking  heart.  They  are  lost,  all  lost  together,  out 
here  upon  the  pitiless  plains.  And  there  are  firesides 
of  which  these  men  may  think! 

The  herd  moves!  It  recks  not  human  guidance 
now,  for  the  storm  alone  is  its  final  guide  and  master. 
The  storm  orders  it  to  move,  and  it  obeys.  With  low 
moans  and  groanings  of  suffering  and  of  fear  there 
ensues  a  waving  movement  of  the  long  blanket  of 
white  which  has  enshrouded  the  close-packed  mass 
of  cattle.  They  stagger  and  stop,  doubting  and  dread- 
ing. They  go  on  again  and  stop,  and  again  they 
sway  and  swing  forward,  the  horns  rattling  close  upon 
each  other,  the  heads  drooping,  the  gait  one  of  misery 
and  despair.  The  drift  has  begun! 

Lost  in  the  drift  are  the  two  boys,  and  they  know 
they  may  as  well  follow  as  stop.  Indeed,  they  dare 
not  stop,  for  to  stop  is  to  die.  Down  from  their  horses 
they  go  and  battle  on  foot  among  the  dull-eyed  cattle. 
Over  their  hearts  creeps  always  that  heavy,  wondering, 
helpless  feeling.  They  freeze,  but  soon  cease  to  know 
they  freeze.  Their  stiff  legs  stumble,  and  they  wonder 
why.  Their  mouths  are  shut  fast  by  the  ice.  The 
eyes  of  the  cattle  are  frozen  over  entirely  by  the  ice 
that  gathers  on  their  eyelids,  and  their  hair,  long  and 
staring,  shows  in  frosty  filaments  about  their  heads 
and  necks.  Icicles  hang  upon  their  jaws.  They  moan 
and  sigh,  now  and  then  a  deep  rumbling  bellow  com- 
ing from  the  herd.  The  cows  low  sadly.  The  little 
calves  bawl  piteously.  But  on  and  on  goes  the  drift, 
all  keeping  together  for  a  time.  And  with  it  some- 
where are  the  two  cowboys,  who  should  have  known 
the  import  of  the  blizzard  on  the  plains. 

This  horrible  icy  air  can  not  long  be  endured  by 


188  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

any  living  being,  and  soon  the  herd  begins  to  string 
out  into  a  long  line,  the  weaker  ones  falling  to  the 
rear.  If  the  cattle  be  strong  and  well-fed,  they  can 
endure  any  cold,  but  starvation  has  here  been  long 
at  work.  The  horrible  and  inexorable  law  of  Nature 
is  going  on.  The  strongest  alone  may  survive.  Those 
which  fall  back  do  not  at  first  stop.  They  stagger  on 
as  far  as  they  can.  A  little  calf  falls  down,  sinking 
first  to  its  knees,  and  then  dropping  stiffly,  its  head  still 
down  the  wind.  Its  mother  stays  with  it,  pushing  at 
it  with  her  own  frozen  muzzle.  It  can  not  get  to  its 
feet.  The  mother  looks  after  the  indistinct  forms 
slowly  disappearing  in  the  driving  mist  of  white,  but 
goes  no  farther  on.  In  the  spring  they  will  find  the 
mother  and  calf  together.  Farther  to  the  south  are 
the  bunches  of  yearlings  which  were  weak  and  thin 
of  flesh.  Then  come  the  heifers  and.  cows  and  steers 
as  they  fell  out  and  back  in  order  in  this  white  cold 
mist  of  the  great  drift  that  cleared  the  range  from  the 
foothills  to  the  railroad  fences.  In  places  the  follow- 
ers of  the  drift  may  find  gullies  or  deep  ravines  packed 
with  carcasses  of  animals  which  here  met  their  death. 
When  the  wind  had  swept  the  coulees  full  of  snow  the 
treacherous  white  surface  looked  all  alike  to  the  dull 
eyes  of  the  drifting  cattle.  They  walked  into  the 
yielding  snow  and  fell  one  above  the  other  in  a  horri- 
ble confusion,  those  above  trampling  to  death  those 
beneath  until  all  was  mingled  in  a  smother  and  crush 
of  passing  life.  Again  there  may  be  noted  a  spot 
where,  under  the  lee  of  some  cut  bank  or  bluff,  the 
cattle  paused  for  shelter  from  the  storm.  Here  the 
snow  piled  up  about  them,  drifting  high  around  into 
an  icy  barricade,  until  they  had  left  but  a  tiny  feeding 
ground,  swept  bare  by  the  eddying  winds.  Here, 
hemmed  in  and  soon  without  food,  they  stood  and 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  189 

starved  by  inches,  perhaps  living  for  days  or  weeks 
before  the  end  came.  Here,  had  rescue  been  attempted, 
they  would  have  charged  furiously,  with  such  strength 
as  they  had  left,  any  human  being  daring  to  come  near, 
for  the  greater  the  strait  of  the  range  animal  the 
greater  the  unreasoning  rage  with  which  it  resists  all 
effort  at  its  succour. 

All  day  and  all  night  and  into  the  next  day,  per- 
haps, the  cattle  drift,  their  numbers  less  and  less  with 
each  passing  hour,  leaving  behind  a  trail  of  shapeless 
heaps,  thick  and  thicker  as  the  long  hours  drag  by, 
the  numbers  of  the  survivors  growing  still  fewer  and 
fewer,  weaker  and  more  weak.  Out  of  the  whole  herd 
which  started  there  are  but  a  few  hundreds  or  thou- 
sands which  come  to  the  fences  of  the  railroad,  seventy 
miles  from  where  the  drift  began.  Here  it  ends — 
ends  in  a  row  of  heaped-up  carcasses  along  the  wires 
that  held  the  remnants  of  the  herd  from  further 
travel;  ends  as  you  may  see  as  you  gaze  from  the  car 
window  in  the  spring  as  you  are  whirled  across  the 
great  plains — ends  in  a  blanket  of  hide  a  hundred 
miles  in  length.  The  skinning  parties  which  follow 
the  drift  when  the  weather  has  grown  warmer  use  the 
wire  fences  as  their  drying  racks. 

And  of  the  men  who  were  caught  in  the  storm? 
One  they  found  in  a  coulee  back  toward  the  beginning 
of  the  drift,  where  he  crawled  under  a  little  ledge 
and  thought  he  could  weather  out  the  storm.  He  had 
no  fire  nor  fuel  nor  light  of  any  kind,  and  neither 
had  he  any  food.  He  cared  nothing  for  these  things. 
He  felt  cheerful,  and  he  fell  asleep,  dreaming.  The 
other  man  went  much  farther  Before  he  lay  down. 
Then,  resourceful  to  the  last,  he  shot  and  killed  a 
steer  in  a  little  hollow  where  the  wind  was  least.  They 
found  him  crouched  up  close  to  the  body  of  the  ani- 


190  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

mal,  his  arm  between  its  fore  legs  and  partly  about 
its  neck,  his  face  hid  in  the  hair  of  the  creature's  chest. 
But  the  blood  of  both  had  turned  to  ice  before  they  fell. 
In  the  spring  the  sky  is  blue  and  repentant,  and 
the  wind  sings  softly  in  the  prairie  grasses.  But  one 
can  not  forget  that  awful  picture  of  the  blue-gray  time, 
and  ever  he  hears  the  death  songs  of  the  legions  of 
the  air  which  urged  on  the  herds  in  their  solemn  march 
into  annihilation.  Such  is  one  picture  of  the  range. 

There  is  another  picture  of  a  strenuous  sort.  This 
time  it  is  summer,  and  it  is  at  night.  At  evening,  when 
the  great  herd  of  trail  cattle  bedded  down  on  the  hill- 
side, the  sky  was  clear  and  the  stars  were  shining 
luminously  large  in  the  pure  air  of  the  plains.  It 
needed  an  old  plainsman  to  know  what  this  foreboding 
quiet  meant,  this  ominous  hush,  and  he  alone  would 
have  noted  anxiously  the  dark  line  of  cloud  along  the 
horizon.  Any  of  these  hardy  riders  could  tell  you  a 
storm  was  breeding,  but  they  have  seen  many  storms 
and  do  not  fear  them.  The  cook  whistles  as  steadily 
and  discordantly  as  ever  as  he  washes  his  dishes  in 
the  dusk,  swearing  fluently  when  a  stray  whisk  of  air 
blows  the  ashes  out  of  his  fire  pit  into  his  eyes.  The 
cook  pulls  the  wagon  sheet  tight  to-night,  however, 
and  he  makes  his  own  bed  inside  the  wagon.  The 
night  herder  turns  up  his  collar  as  he  goes  on  watch 
with  the  horse  herd.  The  drive  boss  sits  with  his 
knees  between  his  hands  smoking  a  pipe,  which  glows 
dully  in  the  darkening  night.  The  camp  is  quiet. 
All  about  come  up  the  faint  night  sounds  of  the  plains. 
The  men  are  tired,  and  one  by  one  they  unroll  their 
blankets  and  lie  out  in  huge  cocoons,  each  with  his 
head  in  the  hollow  of  his  saddle  and  his  hat  pulled 
down  over  his  face.  Jim,  the  foreman  of  the  drive, 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  191 

does  not  go  to  sleep  just  yet.  He  sits  smoking  and 
watching.  Now  and  then  a  wandering  whiff  of  wind 
blows  the  ashes  in  a  fiery  little  stream  out  of  his  pipe 
bowl.  Jim  puts  an  extra  man  on  the  night  watch, 
who  departs  into  the  dark,  singing  softly  to  himself. 

Jim  sits  thus  for  some  time  with  his  knees  up  be- 
tween his  hands,  perhaps  nodding  now  and  then,  but 
afraid  to  go  to  sleep.  He  notes  the  steady  play  of  the 
lightning  on  the  rising  bank  of  clouds,  and  before  an 
hour  has  passed  he  begins  to  hear  the  low,  incessant 
muttering  of  the  thunder.  In  half  an  hour  more  he 
is  going  down  the  line,  kicking  the  long  cocoons  with 
the  toe  of  his  boot  and  calling  out: 

"  Tumble  out,  fellers!  Git  up!  There's  goin'  to  be 
a  hell  of  a  storm." 

With  grunts  of  protest  the  cowpunchers  roll  out 
of  their  blankets  and  sit  up  in  the  night,  rubbing 
their  eyes.  They  see  the  bank  of  cloud  now  reaching 
over  them,  and  hear  the  steady  roar  of  the  thunder 
approaching.  The  wind  begins  to  sob  in  the  grass, 
and  little  particles  of  dust  go  whirling  by.  The  head 
of  the  cook  pokes  itself  out  from  the  wagon. 

"  What  in  hell!  "  says  the  cook. 

"  She's  goin'  to  be  hell  all  right,  cookie,"  says  a 
voice  cheerfully.  "  You  better  picket  your  dough- 
pan." 

"  I  would  not  live  al-1-lwa-y,"  comes  the  faint  voice 
of  the  night  herder  as  he  makes  his  rounds. 

"  Saddle  up,  fellers!  "  says  Jim.  "  There's  shore 
goin'  to  be  hell  a-poppin'  here  before  long.  If  they 
ever  break  out  of  here  they'll  run  to  hell  an'  gone  with 
us  to-night." 

"  That's  right,  pitch,  you  wall-eyed  son  of  misery!  " 
says  an  injured  voice  in  the  dark,  from  where  some 
cowpuncher  is  having  an  argument  with  his  pony, 


192  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

which  resents  the  saddle  thrown  across  its  back  in  the 
dark. 

"  Oh,  then,  Susannah,  don't  yer  cry  fer  me!  "  sings 
another  voice,  as  the  owner  of  it,  wrapped  in  his  yel- 
low slicker,  gets  into  his  saddle  and  turns  toward  the 
herd. 

"  Good-bye,  cookie!  "  calls  another.  "  You  can  git 
breakfast  fer  us  on  the  Cimarron,  I  reckon/' 

They  all  take  up  their  round  about  the  herd,  fall- 
ing into  their  work  with  the  philosophy  of  their  call- 
ing, which  accepts  things  as  they  come.  As  they  ride 
in  line  along  the  edge  of  the  herd  the  thunder  is 
booming  loudly,  and  the  rain  begins  to  fall  in  heavy, 
irregular  drops.  Then  suddenly  with  a  gusty  rush 
the  torrents  of  the  air  break  loose,  and  a  solid  wall  of 
rain  sweeps  over  the  place,  hiding  in  a  whirling  mist 
the  outlines  of  men  and  animals.  The  thunder  now 
bursts  with  deafening  volume.  The  cattle  have  sprung 
to  their  feet  and  now  push  about  among  themselves 
uneasily,  their  long  horns  clanking  together  in  the 
darkness.  They  are  wet,  but  the  rain  is  not  chilling, 
and  in  a  moment  the  cloud-burst  is  over  and  gone,  and 
nothing  remains  of  the  storm  but  the  lightning  and 
the  wind.  The  sky  lightens  queerly,  so  that  objects 
may  be  faintly  seen,  men  riding  along  the  edge  of  the 
herd,  keeping  the  cattle  back  and  closing  them  up. 
Sounds  of  confused  sort  come  from  among  the  cattle, 
grumblings  and  mutterings,  mingling  with  the  chant- 
ing of  the  cowboys  riding.  The  storm  is  nearly  past, 
but  the  whole  air  is  alive  with  electricity.  The  dis- 
charge of  the  thunder  is  as  the  noise  of  cannon.  The 
lightning  falls  not  in  jagged  lines,  but  in  burst  ing 
balls  of  flame,  which  detonate  with  terrible  reports. 
Along  the  tips  of  the  horns  of  the  cattle  the  faint 
flames  play  in  weird  way,  as  the  fires  of  St.  Elmo  upon 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  193 

the  spars  of  a  ship  caught  in  a  storm  at  sea.  The  men 
still  hold  the  line,  calling  to  the  cattle,  which  are  now 
clattering  and  shuffling  about  in  a  way  not  pleasant 
to  hear,  though  still  they  do  not  break  into  any  con- 
certed rush.  Now  and  again  a  start  is  made  by  some 
frightened  animal,  but  the  nearest  cowboy  turns  it 
back,  riding  against  the  head  of  each  break  showing 
toward  the  edge.  The  herd  is  shifting  ground  a  little, 
edging  a  trifle  down  wind.  This  brings  it  nearer  to 
the  camping  place,  nearer  also  to  the  wagon  of  the 
cook,  which  stands  with  its  white  cover  broken  loose 
and  napping  upon  the  gale.  There  is  a  call  of  a  voice, 
which  begins  to  shout  out  something. 

But  this  voice,  and  all  the  voices,  and  all  the  other 
sounds  are  swallowed  in  a  mighty,  dreadful  roar.  The 
white  cover  of  the  wagon  has  broken  loose  at  the 
other  end,  the  rope  parting  with  a  crack  like  the  re- 
port of  a  gun.  The  wagon  sheet  whips  madly  up  and 
down  as  though  with  deliberate  intent  of  malice,  and 
then  goes  sailing  off  across  the  prairie.  No  studied 
effort  of  evil  could  have  been  direr  at  this  very  mo- 
ment! The  herd,  keyed  up  to  the  last  pitch  of  nerv- 
ousness and  only  held  by  the  utmost  efforts  of  the 
cowboys,  needs  only  this  devil's  device  to  set  it  off. 
"Good  God  A'mighty!  "  bursts  out  the  foreman.  But 
even  as  he  shouts  he,  in  common  with  every  other 
man  of  the  outfit,  digs  in  his  spurs  and  rides  for  the 
head  of  the  herd,  the  front  of  this  plunging,  rush- 
ing, stumbling,  falling  mass  of  panic-stricken  creatures 
which  are  off  in  the  curse  of  the  drive — the  dreaded 
stampede  in  the  dark! 

The  sound  of  the  rushing  hoofs  of  near  ten  thou- 
sand cattle  is  imposing  enough  at  any  time,  but  heard 
mingled  and  confused  in  the  running  in  the  dark  it  is 
something  terrible.  A  loud  cracking  of  hoofs  comes 


194:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

through  the  fog  of  sound,  and  the  mad  rattling  of 
the  great  horns  swung  together  in  the  crush  as  the 
cattle  struggle  to  head  out  of  the  suffocating  press 
behind  them  and  on  all  sides.  Mad  indeed  is  this 
chase  to-night,  and  far  will  be  its  ending,  this  ride 
with  the  accompaniment  of  the  booming  thunder  and 
with  the  ripping  flight  of  the  lightning  for  its  only 
beacon.  Ride,  Jim!  Ride,  Springtime,  and  Tex.,  and 
Curley,  and  Kid,  and  Cherokee,  and  all  the  rest  of 
you!  Now  if  ever  you  must  be  men  of  proof!  Into 
the  rattle  of  it,  up  to  the  head  of  it,  press,  spur, 
crowd!  Shoot  into  their  faces,  frighten,  them  back, 
turn  them  aside,  ride  into  them,  over  them,  but  ride 
fast  and  thoughtless  of  yourself!  There  is  no  possi- 
bility of  taking  care.  The  pony  must  do  it  all.  The 
pony  knows  what  a  stumble  means.  The  herd  will 
roll  over  horse  and  man  and  crush  them  as  if  they 
were  but  prairie  flowers.  The  ground  is  rough,  but 
there  must  be  no  blunder.  Ah,  but  there  was!  Some- 
thing happened  there!  There  was  a  stumble!  There 
was  a  cry,  smothered;  but  all  that  was  half  a  mile 
back.  The  herd  sweeps  on. 

Into  the  thick  of  the  leaders  of  the  herd  the  cow- 
punchers  crowd  in  from  the  flanks,  meeting  there  the 
men  who  were  swept  away  in  the  first  mad  rush  of  the 
cattle.  They  can  not  now  escape  from  this  position, 
nor  do  they  seek  to  do  so,  but  ride  with  the  stampede, 
their  horses  with  ears  flat,  struggling  on  at  top  speed, 
bounding  from  side  to  side  to  escape  the  jostling  of 
a  steer,  leaping  ahead  when  the  press  clears  in  front 
for  a  moment.  Through  the  noise  of  the  pounding 
hoofs  comes  the  panting  of  the  cattle  and  the  sobbing 
but  valiant  breath  of  the  brave  little  horses  which 
carry  these  wild  and  reckless  men.  A  faint  shout  is 
heard  at  times  or  the  "  Whoa-o-o-ope!  "  of  a  voice  call- 


DEIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  195 

ing  to  the  cattle  in  attempt  at  soothing  them.  Now 
and  then  may  be  seen  an  arm  thrown  up  and  waved 
in  gesture  to  a  near-by  rider,  or  at  times  may  shoot 
forth  the  flash  of  the  revolver  as  some  daring  man 
heads  across  the  front  and  tries  to  frighten  the  herd 
into  swinging  from  its  course. 

The  thundering  hoofs  now  seem  to  pound  upon 
harder  ground.  The  broken  country  near  the  bluffs 
of  the  river  is  at  hand.  Down  into  gully  and  ravine 
go  men  and  horses  and  cattle  in  the  dark,  and  welter 
out  of  it  upon  the  other  side  as  best  they  may.  Many 
an  animal  goes  headlong  in  the  dark,  but  it  is  not 
noticed  or  deplored.  Each  object  makes  a  tiny  rock 
to  stem  the  flood  of  pouring  cattle.  But  suddenly, 
without  warning,  the  whole  front  of  the  herd  plunges 
down  utterly  out  of  view!  It  has  dropped  down  into 
the  earth,  has  been  swallowed  up  bodily!  Some  of  the 
cowpunchers  went  down  too.  At  the  brink  of  the 
bluff  the  following  numbers  of  the  cattle  pile  up  and 
back  in  a  horrid  mass,  seeking  to  crowd  back,  but  yet 
pushed  on  by  the  herd  behind.  The  remnant  of  the 
herd  splits,  and  turns  along  the  side  of  the  bluff. 
The  remaining  cowboys  follow,  pressing  and  crowding 
in,  still  spurring  up  to  the  heads  of  the  panting  cattle 
and  seeking  to  turn  them.  The  head  of  the  herd 
finally  swerves,  it  turns  gradually  more  and  more. 
The  cowboys  are  still  in  front,  shouting,  crowding, 
firing  their  revolvers  across  the  faces  of  the  cattle,  and 
urging  them  back  and  away  from  the  bluffs.  The 
cattle  turn  now  and  traverse  a  circle.  A  moment  later 
and  they  round  the  same  circle,  their  ranks  now  closer 
together.  The  circle  grows  smaller  and  smaller.  The 
mill  is  begun.  Round  and  round  they  go  until  they 
no  longer  seek  to  break  away,  but  stand  and  clatter 
and  shuffle  and  pant.  Round  and  round  the  mill  the 


196  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

cowboys  ride.,  talking  to  the  cattle  now  in  proficient 
profanity,  but  doing  nothing  to  startle  the  terrorized 
animals  into  a  further  flight.  Gradually  the  panic 
passes.  At  length  the  cowpuncher  takes  a  chew  of 
tobacco  and  pulls  up  his  pony  even  from  the  walk  in 
which  he  has  been  going  about  the  herd. 

The  men  who  were  at  the  head  of  the  herd  at  the 
place  where  it  went  over  the  cut  bank  had  no  warning 
and  no  alternative.  The  ponies  leaped  with  the  cattle,, 
and  all  took  their  chances  together  at  the  foot  of  the 
bank,  a  dozen  feet  in  height.  But  here  the  ground 
was  soft,  and  it  was  but  a  few  steps  to  the  water.  In 
a  moment  the  river  was  full  of  struggling,  frantic  crea- 
tures, all  swimming  for  their  lives,  and  all  acting 
blindly  except  the  cowpunchers,  who  retained  their 
grim  energy  and  had  no  thought  of  giving  up  their 
lives.  These  swam  clear  of  the  crush  of  cattle  and 
dropped  down  to  a  bar  below.  Scattered  animals  came 
drifting  down  stream  and  took  the  shore  as  they  had 
done.  Many  dead  cattle  floated  past  the  bar,  and  at 
the  foot  of  the  bank  a  heap  of  dead  and  crippled  ones 
lay  tangled.  Not  till  morning,  of  course,  could  the 
task  of  roping  and  pulling  out  the  cattle  from  the 
water  and  from  under  the  banks  begin.  These  cow- 
punchers  as  well  as  they  were  able  rode  back  to  the 
path  of  the  "split,"  and  so  found  the  main  mill  and 
joined  their  companions. 

"  I  shore  thought  I  was  a  angel  when  we  took  the 
bmik,"  says  Curley,  wiping  his  face  with  his  wet  neck- 
erchief. 

"Where's  the  Kid?"  asks  Jim  gruffly. 

"  Dunno,"  is  the  answer.  "  I  ain't  seen  him  no- 
wheres  near  me." 

It  is  hard  to  tell  where  any  one  may  be  at  this  time, 
past  midnight,  with  the  storm  just  muttering  it 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  197 

away.  Some  of  the  cattle  may  be  running  yet,  and 
some  of  the  cowboys  may  be  with  them.  It  may  be 
twenty  miles  away  that  the  last  cowpuncher  will  pull 
up.  The  cattle  will  be  scattered  over  miles  and  miles 
of  country,  and  it  will  take  days  to  get  them  together, 
less  the  losses  which  are  sure  to  ensue  upon  the  stam- 
pede. Nothing  remains  to  be  done  now  by  those  who 
are  assembled  but  to  hold  their  remnant  of  the  herd  till 
morning.  And  morning  finds  the  men  still  holding 
the  herd,  their  eyes  now  heavy  and  red,  their  faces 
haggard,  their  clothing  covered  with  the  mud  of  the 
mad  ride  in  the  night.  A  detail  is  made  to  keep  watch 
here,  while  the  rest  of  the  men  go  back  to  camp  to 
bring  on  the  cook  wagon  and  pick  up  the  frayed  ends 
of  the  rout.  As  these  men  ride  in  they  see  occasional 
scattered  groups  of  cattle,  which  are  turned  back  to- 
ward the  main  body.  No  one  says  much,  for  all  are 
tired.  As  they  pass  on  toward  camp,  or  rather  toward 
where  camp  was,  a  draggled  figure  rides  up  from  out 
a  little  gully — one  of  the  boys  who  has  followed  off 
a  bunch  of  cattle  by  himself,  and  so  been  widely  sep- 
arated from  the  others. 

"  Hello,  Cherokee!  "  says  Jim.  "  Where's  the  Kid? 
We  can't  none  of  us  find  him  nowhere." 

"  I  ain't  seen  him  neither,"  says  Cherokee.  "  There 
ain't  nobody  at  all  been  with  me." 

But  as  they  ride  on  along  the  torn  and  trampled 
trail  left  by  the  cattle  in  their  flight  of  the  night  be- 
fore, they  all  see  the  Kid — see  him,  every  one  of  them, 
before  any  one  of  them  dares  to  say  a  word.  They 
know  what  is  this  dark  mass  lying  on  the  ground  on 
ahead.  Something  strange  chokes  every  throat,  and 
each  man  adds  an  oath  to  the  heap  of  pity  as  they 
draw  up  by  the  body.  The  boy's  face,  washed  white 
and  clean  by  the  drenching  rain  which  has  taken  away 
U 


198  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  grime  of  the  ride,  lies  upturned  in  the  morning 
sunlight,  which  kisses  it  gently.  His  hair,  sodden  with 
the  flood,  trails  off  into  the  miry  earth,  of  which  he 
was  a  part,  and  into  which  he  is  now  to  return.  His 
pony,  with  its  fore  legs  broken,  lifts  its  head  as  high 
as  it  can  and  whinnies. 

"  Kill  the  horse,  Bud! "  says  Jim  at  last,  as  they 
stand  about  the  straightened  figure  of  the  boy.  A 
shot  is  given  the  pony,  and  the  saddle  stripped  from 
its  back.  Jim  mounts  his  horse,  and  reaches  down  to 
the  burden  which  Springtime  hands  up  to  him  from 
the  ground.  He  takes  the  dead  boy  in  his  arms,  riding 
with  his  reins  loose  over  the  horn  of  his  saddle  and 
holding  up  his  burden  carefully  across  his  lap.  He 
says  nothing  till  he  gets  near  camp,  muttering  then 
only,  "It's  too  d—d  bad!" 

When  they  get  to  camp  the  cook  has  breakfast 
ready,  such  as  it  is.  The  flour  and  sugar  and  every- 
thing else  is  wetted  to  the  point  of  dissolution  by  the 
rain.  More  talkative  than  his  fellows  of  the  saddle, 
the  cook  breaks  into  loud  exclamations  of  lamentation 
when  he  sees  what  is  this  strange  burden  the  foreman 
is  carrying. 

"  Shut  up,  d — n  you!  "  says  Jim  to  the  cook.  He 
knows  that  it  was  not  the  fault  of  the  cook  that  all 
this  trouble  occurred,  but  he  feels  that  he  has  to  blame 
somebody  for  something,  in  order  to  relieve  his  own 
overburdened  heart.  "  It's  yore  own  fault,"  he  says  to 
the  cook,  "lettin'  that  wagon  cover  blow  off.  You 
do  it  again,  an',  d — n  you,  I'll  kill  you!  " 

It  is  primitive,  crude,  and  hard  enough,  this  lit  lie 
group  here  on  the  muddy  plains  this  morning.  For 
them  there  is  not  a  voice  of  comfort,  not  a  sign  of  hoi]), 
not  a  token  of  hope.  The  tired,  worn  faces  show  hard 
and  grim  in  the  unflattering  light  of  morning  as  they 


DRIFTS  AND  STAMPEDES.  199 

stand  about,  some  holding  the  bridles  of  their  horses, 
some  leaning  against  the  wagon  or  sitting  on  the  wagon 
tongue.  There  is  no  house  nor  home  here  nor  any- 
where near  here.  It  is  a  hundred  miles  to  a  ranch, 
two  hundred  to  a  town.  There  is  no  church  nor 
minister.  Not  one  hypocrite  is  to  be  found  in  this  knot 
of  rude  men,  and  as  none  has  professed  any  religion 
before,  so  none  does  so  now.  Jim,  who  is  the  leader, 
straightens  out  the  boy's  limbs  as  he  lays  him  upon 
the  ground  and  spreads  a  blanket  over  him. 

"  Git  breakfast  over!  "  he  says  grimly.  And  after 
breakfast  the  shovel  of  the  cook  which  dug  the  trench 
for  the  fire  digs  the  grave  for  the  boy.  There  is  no 
funeral  service.  He  is  buried  in  his  blankets,  with 
his  hat  over  his  face  and  his  boots  and  spurs  in  place, 
as  he  slept  when  he  was  alive.  A  soldier  of  the  plains, 
he  dared  the  risks  of  his  calling,  and  met  them  like 
a  man.  Such  is  another  picture  of  the  plains. 


CHAPTEE   XI. 

A    DAY    AT    THE    RANCH. 

DURING  days,  or  perhaps  weeks,  of  the  busy  season, 
when  most  of  the  men  are  absent  on  the  round-ups, 
the  door  of  the  home  ranch  may  be  closed.  It  may 
be  closed,  but  it  is  not  locked,  for  on  the  frontier 
locks  and  bars  are  unknown.  The  necessities  of  a 
country  make  its  customs,  and  in  the  remote  parts  of 
the  plains  and  mountains  hospitality  is  practically  a 
necessity.  The  traveller  is  perhaps  far  from  home, 
and  is  hungry  or  athirst  when  he  falls  upon  the  cabin 
of  some  man  to  whom  he  is  a  stranger.  When  that 
occurs  the  stranger  goes  into  the  unlocked  house,  helps 
himself  to  the  bacon  and  flour,  cooks  his  meal,  and 
departs  as  he  came.  In  time  he  may  repay  the  cour- 
tesy himself  at  his  own  cabin  and  perhaps  in  the  same 
way.  There  was  a  touch  of  feudal  largeness  and  lib- 
erality in  some  of  the  customs  of  the  earlier  cattle 
days,  and  the  fact  that  they  were  necessary  rendered 
them  none  the  less  beautiful.  Perhaps  the  state  of 
Ihe  social  relations  among  the  cattle  men  of  the  early 
range  was  approached  most  closely  by  the  life  of  the 
great  Southern  plantations  in  ante  le/ltini  days,  from 
which,  indeed,  it  may  in  part  have  had  its  origin. 
The  ways  of  the  South  always  flavoured  the  life  of 
the  cattle  country,  whether  in  Texas  or  Wyoming,  far 
more  than  the  ways  of  the  North  and  East.  Perhaps 

200 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  201 

the  zest  which  many  Eastern  men  found  in  ranch  life 
was  the  zest  of  novelty,  and  this  a  novelty  to  be  meas- 
ured by  degrees  of  latitude  and  not  of  longitude.  We 
must  credit  the  South  with  the  origin  and  establish- 
ment of  the  cattle  trade,  and  with  many  of  its  most 
interesting,  its  broadest,  and  most  beautiful  features. 
The  more  exact  methods,  the  better  system,  the  per- 
fection of  detail,  and  utilization  of  things  once  neg- 
lected came  from  the  North,  and  came,  alas!  with  a 
shock  fatal  to  some  of  the  customs  of  the  good  old 
days.  In  the  past  the  lock  of  the  ranch  door  was 
nothing  but  a  rude  wooden  latch,  as  easily  opened 
from  without  as  from  within.  To-day  there  may  be 
iron  padlocks  upon  some  of  the  doors  of  the  houses  on 
the  range. 

There  is  no  lock  upon  the  door  of  our  ranch  house, 
whether  it  be  empty  or  occupied.  Such  as  it  is,  it  con- 
stitutes the  only  home  the  cowboy  has.  Hither  he 
returns  from  the  more  active  duties  of  the  round-up 
or  the  drive,  and  takes  up  the  less  exacting  routine 
of  everyday  ranch  life.  Of  work  proper,  as  a  farm 
labourer  would  consider  it,  the  cowboy  has  little  real 
conception.  He  is  a  horseman  and  nothing  more, 
and  has  little  inclination  for  any  work  that  can  not 
be  done  in  the  saddle.  Thus,  if  he  feels  obliged  to 
go  out  for  wood,  he  goes  out  on  horseback,  and  his  idea 
of  the  correct  way  to  get  a  log  of  wood  to  camp  is  to 
drag  it  at  the  end  of  his  lariat.  If  a  wagon  is  mired 
down  in  the  quicksands  of  a  soft  crossing,  the  cowboy 
who  comes  to  the  aid  of  the  driver  does  not  dismount 
and  get  himself  muddy  in  the  labour  of  getting  the 
wagon  out,  but  makes  fast  his  rope  to  some  holding 
place  on  the  wagon  and  trusts  to  his  saddle  girths  for 
the  rest,  knowing  that  his  plucky  little  pony  will  in 
this  way  pull  a  considerable  load,  though  it  would 


202  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

break  its  neck  in  rebellion  if  hitched  up  to  the  wagon. 
The  cowboy  has  a  mild  contempt  for  all  walking  and 
driving  men.  In  his  own  line  of  work  he  can  be  a 
miracle  of  tireless  energy.  Out  of  that  line  he  is  a 
prodigy  of  more  or  less  good-natured  laziness. 

We  may  suppose,  then,  that  a  day  of  ordinary 
ranch  life  is  not  one  of  great  activity  or  haste.  The 
chores  which  the  cowpuncher  considers  within  his 
province  are  very  few  and  simple.  If  in  the  winter 
some  horses  are  kept  up  under  feed  in  the  ranch  sta- 
bles, he  may  feed  his  own  horse,  but  no  other  man's. 
In  the  later  days  of  ranch  life  the  cowboy  has  come  to 
be  more  of  a  hewer  of  wood  and  a  drawer  of  water, 
more  interested  in  the  haying  operations  and  other 
portions  of  the  ranch  economy,  but  primarily  and  prop- 
erly the  genuine  cowpuncher  had  to  do,  as  he  under- 
stood it,  only  with  cows,  which  were  to  be  handled 
by  himself  only  while  he  was  in  the  saddle.  It  was 
the  chief  concern  of  the  rancher  in  the  early  days  to 
see  that  his  cattle  had  a  fair  show  in  the  struggle  with 
Nature.  Efforts  toward  ameliorating  the  conditions 
of  the  animals  were  very  crude  and  little  considered. 
Food  and  shelter  were  things  which  the  cattle  were 
supposed  to  find  for  themselves.  The  ranch  proper 
has  none  of  the  grinding  detail  of  the  farm,  and  the 
cowboy  proper  is  as  different  from  the  farm  labourer 
as  a  wild  hawk  from  a  domestic  fowl. 

The  day  at  the  ranch  begins  early,  for  by  daybreak 
the  men  have  slept  enough.  There  is  little  to  induce 
them  to  sit  up  late  at  night.  Sometimes  a  trapper  or 
wolfer  stops  at  the  ranch,  and  there  may  be  spirited 
games  inaugurated  over  the  well-worn  and  greasy  pack 
of  cards,  the  currency  being  what  money  the  cow- 
punchers  may  have,  together  with  due  bills  against 
their  coming  pay  day,  these  perhaps  staked  against 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  203 

strings  of  coyote  feet  and  wolf  scalps  which  are  good 
for  so  much  bounty  at  the  county  seat.  Of  reading 
the  cowpuncher  does  but  little,  and  his  facilities  for 
obtaining  literature  are  very  limited.  The  periodicals 
reaching  the  cow  camp  are  apt  to  be  of  the  sensational, 
pink-tinted  sort,  with  crude  pictures  and  lurid  letter- 
text.  His  books  are  too  often  of  much  the  same  type, 
though  at  some  of  the  ranches  there  may  be  some  few 
works  of  fiction  of  a  better  sort.  Whatever  the  books 
at  the  ranch  may  be,  from  society  novel  to  farrier's 
guide,  the  cowpuncher  reads  them  all  over  and  over 
again  until  he  is  tired  of  seeing  them.  Not  having 
much  more  to  do  of  an  evening,  he  goes  to  bed.  It  is 
supposed  by  some  misguided  souls  that  when  the  so- 
called  wild  cowboys  of  a  ranch  have  met  at  night 
after  the  close  of  their  exciting  duties  the  scene  at  the 
ranch  house  is  one  of  rude  hilarity  and  confusion. 
Really  quite  the  opposite  of  this  is  true.  The  interior 
of  a  ranch  house  of  an  evening  offers  rather  a  quiet  and 
orderly  appearance.  Liquor  is  something  rarely  seen 
there,  because  it  comes  very  rarely,  and  does  not  last 
long  when  it  comes.  As  a  rule,  the  cowpuncher  is 
rather  a  silent  man,  though  not  so  silent  as  the  melan- 
choly sheep  herder,  who  rarely  endures  the  terrible 
monotony  of  his  calling  for  more  than  seven  years 
without  becoming  insane.  A  cowboy  who  is  very 
"  mouthy "  is  not  usually  in  high  repute  at  a  cow 
camp,  and  one  disposed  to  personal  brilliance  or  sar- 
castic comment  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  fellow-men 
is  apt  to  meet  with  swift  and  effectual  discouragement. 
Rude  and  unlettered  though  he  be,  and  treating  his 
companions  with  a  rough  and  ready  familiarity,  the 
cowpuncher  yet  accords  to  his  neighbour  the  right  to 
live  the  life  and  go  the  gait  which  seems  most  pleasing 
to  himself.  One  does  not  intrude  upon  the  rights  of 


204:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

others  in  the  cow  country,  and  he  looks  to  it  very 
promptly  that  no  one  shall  intrude  upon  his.  In  the 
cow  towns  or  at  the  cow  camps  one  never  hears  the 
abusiveness  or  rude  speech  common  in  the  older  set- 
tlements. On  the  range,  especially  in  the  earlier  days, 
if  a  man  applied  to  another  an  epithet  which  in  the 
States  would  be  taken  as  something  to  be  endured  or 
returned  in  kind,  the  result  would  have  been  the  essen- 
tial and  immediate  preparations  for  a  funeral. 

In  all  countries  where  the  home  is  unknown  and 
the  society  is  made  up  of  males  altogether,  the  men 
grow  very  morose  and  surly,  and  all  the  natural  ugli- 
ness of  their  dispositions  comes  out.  They  are  more 
apt  to  magnify  small  slights  and  slips,  and  more  apt 
to  get  into  trouble  over  small  matters  of  personal 
honour.  Upon  the  other  hand,  the  best  possible  cor- 
rection for  this  tendency  is  the  acknowledged  fact  that 
it  is  not  personally  safe  to  go  into  a  quarrel.  It  was 
never  safe  to  quarrel  on  the  cow  range. 

The  cook,  of  course,  is  the  first  one  up  about  the 
camp,  and  he  "  makes  the  breakfast  "  in  his  own  room. 
The  toilet  of  the  cowpuncher  is  simple,  and,  after  he 
has  kicked  off  his  blankets,  it  is  but  a  few  moments 
before  he  is  at  the  table  eating  his  plateful  of  beef  or 
bacon  and  beans.  The  meal  does  not  last  long,  and 
those  which  follow  it  later  in  the  day  are  much  the 
same.  The  city  club  man  is  fond  of  wild  game  as  an 
adjunct  to  a  good  dinner.  The  "  granger  "  sets  oysters 
and  ice  cream  as  the  highest  possible  luxuries  of  life. 
The  cowboy  thinks  of  fresh  green  vegetables  in  his 
epicurean  dreams,  and  he  longs  for  the  indigestible  pie 
of  civilization.  Any  pure  cowpuncher  would  sell  his 
birthright  for  half  a  dozen  pies.  The  cow  cook  en n 
not  make  actual  pies,  only  leathery  imitations  encasing 
stewed  dried  apples.  One  remembers  very  well  a  cer- 


A  DAY  AT  THE   RANCH.  205 

tain  Christmas  dinner  in  a  little  far-away  Western 
plains  town  which  cost  two  men  twenty-five  dollars, 
and  which  consisted  of  some  badly  cooked  beef,  one 
can  of  oysters,  a  frosted  cake,  and  five  green  onions, 
the  latter  obtained  from  somewhere  by  a  hothouse 
miracle.  This  dinner  was  voted  a  very  extraordinary 
and  successful  affair.  The  men  at  the  ranch  house  are 
not  averse  to  an  occasional  change  in  their  diet,  and 
fresh  game  is  appreciated.  Deer,  antelope,  wild  tur- 
key, and  sometimes  smaller  game  often  appeared  on 
the  menu  of  the  ranch  in  the  old  days,  but  big  game 
is  scarce  now  over  most  of  the  range,  and  small  game 
has  rarely  had  much  attention  from  the  cowboys,  who, 
as  a  rule,  do  not  at  best  do  a  great  deal  of  hunting. 

After  breakfast,  if  this  be  in  the  winter  season 
and  in  a  cold  Northern  country,  the  first  work  is  at- 
tending to  the  riding  horses  kept  in  the  stables,  which 
are  in  such  a  country  a  necessity.  Behind  each  horse 
in  the  stable  is  a  long  wooden  peg,  upon  which  hang 
the  bridle  and  saddle.  Each  man  has  his  own  place 
reserved,  and  resents  any  intrusion  upon  his  rights 
as  to  saddle,  bridle,  and  rope.  One  man  may  use  freely 
the  tobacco  or  whisky  of  a  fellow-cowpuncher,  but  he 
may  not  touch  his  rope,  quirt,  or  other  parts  of  his 
riding  outfit.  Of  course,  one  man  will  not  want  to 
use  another's  saddle.  "  I  wouldn't  ride  a  mile  in  that 
thing  o'  yourn  fer  the  best  heifer  that  runs  the  range/' 
says  the  cowpuncher,  referring  contemptuously  to  the 
prized  saddle  of  another.  "  I'd  plum  have  a  misery 
if  I  had  to  ride  yourn,"  is  the  reply. 

Part  or  all  of  the  horse  herd  will  not  be  kept  up 
at  the  ranch  house,  but  will  be  watched,  so  that  their 
whereabouts  will  be  known.  A  man  may  be  sent  out 
in  the  morning  to  bring  in  the  horse  herd,  and  then 
ensues  one  of  the  most  picturesque  events  of  the  day. 


206  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

The  bunch  of  horses  comes  up  on  a  gallop,  urged  by 
the  cowpuncher  behind  them.  All  sorts  of  horses  are 
in  the  collection,  all  of  them  rough  of  coat  and  hard 
of  form,  and  not  one  of  them  has  a  pleasant  expres- 
sion of  countenance  as  he  turns  into  the  ranch  corral, 
with  his  ears  drooping  and  his  eye  rolling  about  in 
search  of  trouble.  Inside  the  corral  each  horse  runs 
about  and  dodges  behind  his  fellows  when  he  fancies 
himself  wanted,  doing  his  best  to  escape  till  he  actually 
feels  the  circle  of  the  rope,  when  he  falls  into  meek 
but  mutinous  quiet.  The  cowpuncher  leads  him  out, 
and  throws  on  his  back  the  heavy  saddle,  the  pony 
meanwhile  standing  the  picture  of  forlornness  and 
despair,  apparently  upon  his  very  last  legs  and  quite 
unfit  for  travel.  To  his  airs  and  attitudes  the  cow- 
puncher gives  no  attention,  but  proceeds  to  cinch  up 
the  saddle.  As  he  begins  this  the  pony  heaves  a  deep, 
long  breath,  which  converts  him  temporarily  into  some- 
thing of  the  figure  of  a  balloon.  The  cowpuncher 
knows  what  this  means,  and,  putting  his  foot  against 
the  side  of  the  pony,  he  gives  a  quick,  strong  pull  on 
the  girth,  which  causes  the  pony  to  grunt  in  a  grieved 
way  and  to  lessen  his  size  abruptly.  The  hind  cinch 
is  not  drawn  tight,  for  in  regard  to  that  a  cow  horse 
feels  that  it  has  certain  rights  to  breathing  room  which 
even  a  cowpuncher  is  bound  to  respect.  In  any  case, 
the  pony  may  pitch  a  little  when  the  cowboy  swings 
into  the  saddle,  especially  if  it  has  not  been  ridden  for 
some  time.  It  may  do  this  because  it  is  happy  or 
because  it  is  not  happy,  but  the  cowpuncher  does  not 
pay  much  attention  to  it  unless  it  be  very  violent,  in 
which  case  he  may  join  the  yells  of  his  companions  as 
the  pony  goes  thumping  stiff-legged  over  a  dozen  yards 
or  so  before  it  settles  down. 

The  conventional  picture  of  a  cowboy  shows  him 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  207 

going  at  a  sweeping  gallop  over  the  plains,  his  hair 
flying  wildly  and  his  horse  venire  a  terre,  its  eyes  bulg- 
ing out  in  the  exultation  of  speed.  Sometimes  the 
cowboy  rides  hard  on  the  round-up  or  when  he  comes 
to  town,  but  when  he  sets  out  across  the  range  on  his 
day's  work  at  the  ranch  he  does  not  spur  and  gallop 
his  horse.  He  goes  at  a  steady,  ceaseless,  choppy  little 
trot,  which  it  tires  the  life  out  of  a  tenderfoot  to  follow 
all  day.  This  short  trot  is  a  natural  gait  for  the  cow 
pony,  and  it  will  maintain  it  for  a  long  time  if  not 
crowded  too  hard.  These  little  horses  make  very  en- 
during driving  horses  when  broken  to  that  work,  and 
a  team  of  them  has  been  known  to  pull  a  light  wagon 
eighty  miles  in  a  day's  drive — a  feat  which  would 
be  impossible  upon  Eastern  roads  and  in  the  Eastern 
atmosphere. 

As  Jim,  our  cowpuncher,  rides  along  on  his  day's 
work,  quite  alone,  of  course,  he  sees  many  things  which 
the  tenderfoot  would  not  notice.  He  notes  where  a 
deer  has  crossed  the  ranch  road,  where  the  wolves  have 
been  playing  in  the  sand,  where  the  "  bob  cat "  has 
walked  along  the  muddy  bank.  He  sees  the  track  of 
the  horse  which  crossed,  and  can  tell  whether  or  not  it 
is  a  fresh  track.  Perhaps  it  is  part  of  his  day's  work  to 
look  up  some  of  the  ranch  horses  which  have  strayed 
away.  Perhaps  his  ranch  is  under  fence,  and  if  so  he 
must  ride  the  line  to  see  that  the  fence  is  not  down 
at  any  point.  In  the  early  days  no  man  needed  to 
worry  about  fences,  but  of  later  times  the  faithful 
cowboy  who  works  on  a  fenced  ranch  is  sometimes 
called  contemptuously  a  "  pliers  man "  by  the  rus- 
tlers" who  have  no  fences  of  their  own,  this  name 
coming  from  the  tools  which  the  cowboy  carries  in 
order  to  mend  a  break  if  he  finds  one  in  the  wire  fence. 
The  cowpuncher's  eye,  from  force  of  habit,  is  keen  to 


208  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

note  any  unbranded  animal  that  may  be  running  on 
his  range.  If  the  law  or  his  conscience  in  regard  to 
Mavericks  permit  it — and  as  to  Mavericks  the  con- 
science of  all  good  cowpunchers  is  wide — our  solitary 
rider  may  forthwith  set  about  correcting  the  deficiency 
in  the  unbranded  calf  running  with  or  without  the 
company  of  the  cow.  It  is  not  unknown  that  a  cow- 
puncher  has  built  a  fire,  heated  his  iron,  taken  his 
place  again  in. the  saddle,  roped  and  thrown  his  calf, 
and  then  dragged  it  up  to  him  as  he  sat  in  the  saddle, 
finishing  the  branding  without  dismounting.  This, 
however,  is  the  act  of  a  stylist  in  cowpunching. 

The  range  in  summer  time  is  a  breezy  and  not  un- 
pleasant place  to  be,  in  spite  of  the  brilliant  sun.  The 
cowpuncher  has  the  equanimity  of  good  digestion  and 
well-oxygenated  blood  as  he  goes  on  his  morning  ride 
across  the  country.  Always  his  eye  roams  over  the 
expanse  ahead.  He  can  tell  farther  than  the  tender- 
foot can  see  what  is  going  on  out  on  the  horizon.  He 
knows  what  is  this  distant  horseman  crossing  the  flat 
ahead.  If  it  is  a  cowboy,  he  knows  him  because  he 
rides  straight  up  in  his  stirrups,  with  no  crooking-baek 
of  the  leg.  If  it  is  an  Indian,  he  will  be  sitting  hunched 
up,  with  his  stirrups  very  short  and  his  leg  bent  back 
under  the  horse's  belly,  riding  with  the  calf  of  his  leg 
rather  than  with  the  thigh  or  knee,  and,  moreover, 
kicking  his  horse  all  the  time.  If  Jim,  the  cowboy, 
does  not  think  this  horseman  should  be  there  at  this 
part  of  the  range,  he  may  stop  and  unsling  the  big 
field  glasses  which  he  sometimes  carries  with  him  as  an 
aid  in  his  work.  "With  these  glasses  he  swings  his  <rnze 
across  the  whole  sweep  of  country  steadily,  seeing;  a 
strange  panorama,  not  all  of  which  would  be  visible 
if  he  waited  to  ride  up  close  enough  to  see  with  the 
unaided  eye.  He  sees  a  little  bunch  of  young  cows 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  209 

running  up  out  of  a  draw,  and  suspects  that  the  gray 
wolves  may  have  pulled  down  a  calf  there.  He  sees 
the  coyotes,  reddish  in  the  warm  sun,  sneaking  off 
across  the  plain.  He  notes  the  low  swoop  of  a  big 
eagle,  and  he  watches  a  long  time  the  actions  of  a 
bunch  of  antelope.  A  little  cloud  of  dust  arising 
steadily  from  one  spot  attracts  his  attention,  and,  look- 
ing for  a  long  time  at  this,  he  sees  it  is  caused  by  two 
big  bulls  which  are  waging  one  of  the  stubborn  and 
exciting  combats  of  the  cattle  plains.  Interested  in 
this,  he  closes  the  glasses  and  rides  over  to  "  see  the 
fun  "  ;  for  a  fight  of  any  kind  is  not  foreign  to  his  pref- 
erences. He  draws  up  by  the  side  of  the  intent  fight- 
ers, not  close  enough  to  disturb  them,  and,  taking  a 
chew  of  tobacco,  throws  his  leg  over  the  horn  of  his 
saddle  as  he  sits,  offering  mental  wagers  on  the  winner. 
The  two  great  animals  charge  and  charge  again,  their 
solid  foreheads  meeting  with  dull  thumps,  their  backs 
bowing  up  strongly,  their  muscles  cording  out  in  re- 
lief as  they  thrust  and  shove,  each  trying  to  get  at  the 
side  of  the  other,  their  hind  legs  going  fairly  up  on 
their  toes  as  they  clash  in  the  encounter.  The  herd 
stands  near  by,  watching  the  contest  with  eager  inter- 
est, the  heads  of  the  cows  thrown  high,  occasionally 
an  animal  running  away  a  bit  in  fright,  only  to  return 
to  the  fascination  of  the  spectacle.  The  eyes  of  the 
fighting  bulls  glare,  and  foam  hangs  from  their 
mouths.  They  pant  and  grumble,  their  sides  mo- 
mentarily growing  more  densely  covered  with  the 
white  dust.  Thus  they  fight  till  at  length  one  tires 
and  can  no  longer  withstand  the  steady  shove  of  his 
antagonist.  He  weakens,  turns  swiftly  to  one  side, 
swerving  cunningly  clear  of  the  rapid  thrust  at  his 
side  which  follows,  and  runs  off  discomfited,  the  other 
retiring  pawing,  shaking  his  head,  and  bellowing.  This 


210  THE  STORY  Of  THE  COWBOY. 

* 

will  give  the  cowpuncher  something  to  talk  about  to- 
night. 

As  he  rides  on  over  the  range,  the  cowpuncher 
keeps  out  an  eye  along  the  watering-places  to  note  any 
animal  that  may  have  become  mired  down.  When  he 
sees  a  big  steer  thus  entrapped,  and  with  life  enough 
left  in  it  to  warrant  an  attempt  at  its  rescue,  Jim  rides 
up  to  the  edge  of  the  boggy  place  and  sets  about  pull- 
ing out  the  animal.  He  does  not  like  to  get  his  rope 
muddy  for  the  sake  of  a  Texas  steer,  but  still  he  may 
do  so  upon  occasion.  With  a  sweep  of  the  wrist  he 
lands  the  rope  about  the  horns  of  the  creature,  the 
latter  meantime  snorting  and  shaking  its  head  in  re- 
sentment, and  having  no  understanding  of  the  inten- 
tion of  it  all.  Heading  the  pony  up  the  bank,  Jim 
sets  in  the  spurs,  and  the  sturdy  little  horse,  which 
takes  as  much  delight  as  its  master  in  showing  its 
superiority  over  all  horned  things,  stiffens  its  muscles 
and  strains  at  the  rope.  If  the  steer's  neck  holds  to- 
gether, it  comes  out  of  the  mud.  Then,  if  it  has  not 
been  bogged  down  for  very  long,  and  still  has  most 
of  its  quota  of  original  sin,  the  steer  is  extremely  apt 
to  reward  its  rescuers  with  a  sudden  and  determined 
charge  as  quickly  as  it  gets  on  its  feet,  for  it  knows 
nothing  about  the  service  that  has  been  rendered,  and 
feels  only  that  its  dignity  has  been  injured  by  these 
creatures  which  it  hates.  But  the  charge  is  not  rapid 
enough  to  catch  the  swift-footed  little  pony. 

Perhaps  Jim  notes  in  his  rounds  a  steer  that  is 
standing  apart  by  itself,  with  its  head  down,  dull  and 
stupid.  Or  perhaps  it  will  so  stand  for  a  time,  and 
then  run  about  frantic  and  crazy,  as  though  intoxi- 
cated. Jim  knows  what  is  the  cause  of  this.  The 
animal  has  been  eating  the  "  loco  weed,"  against  which 
instinct  gives  it  apparently  no  protection.  The  effect 


A  DAY  AT  TIE  KANCH.  211 

b 

of  this  herb  is  to  stupefy  or  render  crazed  the  animal 
eating  of  it.  From  the  Spanish  word  loco — "mad,  crazy" 
— comes  the  expression  common  on  the  range,  "  lo- 
coed." To  say  thart;  a  man  is  "  locoed  "  means  that  he 
is  foolish,  absurd,  crazy.  If  Jim  sees  too  much  loco 
weed  about,  he  may  drive  the  cattle  away  from  that 
part  of  the  range. 

Jim  does  not  love  a  rattlesnake,  nor  does  his  pony, 
and  the  latter  can  smell  one  a  long  way,  turning  its 
head  to  where  it  lies  curled  up  under  the  shade  of 
the  Spanish  bayonet.  Jim  takes  a  shot  or  so  at  the 
snake  with  his  six-shooter,  not  heeding  the  objections 
of  the  pony  to  the  gun.  A  cow  horse  has  to  get  used 
to  a  great  many  strange  things  that  go  on  upon  its 
back.  Or  Jim  may  dismount  and  kill  the  snake  with 
his  quirt,  rather  a  short-range  weapon  for  such  a  case, 
though  this  does  not  seem  to  trouble  him.  He  may 
skin  the  snake  if  it  be  a  very  large  one,  turning  the 
skin  back  from  the  neck,  and  pulling  it  free  as  he 
holds  the  head  down  with  his  foot.  Snake  fat  is  good 
for  softening  leather,  and  so  is  the  fat  of  the  prairie 
dog,  at  which  Jim  occasionally  tries  a  shot,  just  to 
"  keep  his  hand  in." 

Thus  on  the  cowpuncher  rides  in  the  course  of  his 
day's  work,  across  wide  flats  and  around  high,  red 
buttes,  over  rough  gullies  and  coulees  ("  arroyos  "  these 
would  be  called  in  the  Southwest),  and  all  the  time 
he  is  observant  of  all  that  transpires  about  him,  near 
at  hand  or  at  a  distance.  Perhaps  he  takes  a  straight 
course  across  country,  on  his  way  out  to  one  of  the 
"  line  camps  "  of  the  ranch,  to  see  how  matters  are 
progressing  there.  He  may  take  out  a  letter  to  one 
of  the  boys  at  that  camp,  a  letter  which  has  perhaps 
lain  at  the  nearest  post  office  for  a  month  before  the 
ranch  wagon  went  to  town,  and  which  has  been  at 


212  THE  STOEY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  ranch  a  couple  of  weeks  or  more  in  addition,  but 
which  none  the  less  seems  fresh  to  the  cowboy  receiv- 
ing it.  It  may  be  from  his  "  girl,"  as  he  calls  it  (his 
"  dulce"  it  would  be  in  the  South),,  and  if  so  Jim  will 
not  take  the  answer  back  with  him,  even  though  he 
stay  overnight  at  the  line  camp,  for  the  composition 
of  the  cowpuncher's  reply  is  perhaps  a  portentous 
thing,  to  be  accomplished  only  after  long  and  studious 
effort. 

As  Jim  turns  back  in  his  course,  and  rides  toward 
the  home  ranch  again,  if  it  be  among  his  plans  to  re- 
turn to  the  ranch  the  same  day,  he  may  be  a  trifle 
hungry,  but  he  does  not  mind  that.  It  may  perhaps 
rain,  and  make  the  going  bad  over  the  soft  flats,  but 
he  does  not  mind  that  either.  It  is  a  part  of  his  daily 
training  to  be  calm  and  philosophical.  If  he  be 
thirsty,  he  dismounts  at  the  first  water  hole  and 
drinks,  fearless  of  the  alkali  which  would  nearly  kill 
a  tenderfoot,  but  which  does  not  trouble  him  any 
more  than  it  does  the  hardiest  steer.  He  is  fitted 
to  survive  in  these  hard  surroundings.  He  belongs 
in  this  landscape  of  butte  and  plain  and  scarp  and 
valley,  this  rugged,  hard-faced  man  who  so  confi- 
dently holds  on  his  way,  from  his  narrowed  eyes 
seeing  all  the  wide  sweep  of  the  earth  and  air  about 
him. 

Perhaps  it  is  night  by  the  time  he  gets  back  to  the 
ranch  house,  coming  in  after  a  wide  circle  in  a  di- 
rection opposite  to  that  in  which  he  wont  out.  Per- 
haps he  does  not  get  back  to  camp  at  all  that  ni;:ht, 
even  though  he  wishes  to  do  so,  for  even  the  cow- 
puncher  can  go  astray  in  the  labyrinth  of  the  wilder- 
ness. One  occasion  comes  to  mind  in  which  an  able 
cowboy  lost  his  way  in  a  big  Texas  "pasture,"  all  of 
which  was  under  fence.  He  had,  almost  unbelievable 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  213 

thing,  gone  out  on  foot  into  the  chaparral  to  get  his 
horse,  which  led  him  a  chase  into  the  heart  of  the 
dense  thicket,  where  the  blended  cover  stood  higher 
than  his  head,  matted  and  almost  impenetrable.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  he  knew  the  country  perfectly, 
he  got  lost  and  wandered  directly  away  from  the  ranch 
house,  and  spent  three  days  in  the  chaparral,  all  the 
time,  it  seems,  getting  farther  and  farther  away  from 
home.  He  had  water  but  once  in  that  time,  and  was 
in  a  desperate  plight.  At  last  he  met  a  bunch  of 
horses,  and  noticed  that  one  had  a  bit  of  rope  about 
its  neck,  and  which  he  therefore  thought  might  prove 
gentle.  His  belief  was  correct,  and  he  was  able  to 
go  up  to  this  horse  and  catch  it.  Mounting  it  bare- 
back, he  urged  it  on  and  gave  it  its  head,  and  soon 
the  horse  took  him  to  a  road,  which  later  led  him  to 
a  town  at  the  edge  of  the  "  pasture,"  thirty  miles  from 
the  ranch  house. 

Perhaps  on  some  of  his  daily  rides  about  the  range 
Jim  spies  one  or  more  cows  with  calves  which  have 
escaped  the  round-up,  and  to  which  the  attention  of 
the  branding  iron  should  be  given.  If  he  does  .not 
have  any  branding  iron  with  him,  which  is  very  likely 
the  case,  and  if  the  calves  are  anywhere  near  the  home 
ranch,  he  rounds  them  up  and  drives  them  in  ahead 
of  him,  perhaps  having  four  or  five  in  his  herd  by  the 
time  he  gets  to  the  house.  These  he  turns  into  the 
big  ranch  corral,  and  soon  a  miniature  branding  bee 
is  going  on.  The  fire  is  built  near  the  mouth  of  the 
corral,  and  .Tim  rides  into  the  corral  to  get  the  calves. 
He  knows  far  too  much  to  go  in  on  foot,  for  a  range 
cow  will  often  charge  a  footman,  not  recognising  man 
in  that  segregated  form,  and  taking  him  to  be  some 
enemy  le?s  redoubtable.  The  cows  and  calves  run 
around  the  limit  of  the  corral,  Jim  leisurely  follow- 

15 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ing,  his  rope  trailing  out  in  the  dust  behind  him.  Jim 
has  just  eaten  his  dinner,  and  is  in  no  hurry.  Be- 
tween his  teeth  still  rests  the  toothpick  which  he  has 
whittled  for  himself  from  the  tough  yellow  wood  of  the 
Palo  a  Maria,  and  on  this  Jim  chews  meditatively  as 
he  lazily  follows  after  the  little  calf  which  is  with  the 
big  dun  cow.  Jim  slowly  takes  up  the  slack  of  the 
trailing  rope,  coiling  it  in  his  left  hand,  and  then  he 
lets  drop  the  great  noose,  bending  back  a  few  inches 
of  the  noose  upon  the  rope,  and  grasping  both  to- 
gether a  little  way  from  the  eye  of  the  rope.  He  then 
rides  on  a  trifle  faster,  and  with  a  swift  whirl  the  rope 
now  begins  to  move  about  his  head,  the  wrist  turn- 
ing smoothly  with  it,  and  the  noose  of  the  rope  wav- 
ing in  its  line  like  the  back  of  a  snake,  undulating  up 
and  down  as  well  as  circling  about.  The  cow  pony 
knows  all  about  this,  and  Jim  pays  little  attention  to 
the  horse.  The  pony  takes  him  to  just  the  right  dis- 
tance from  the  right  calf,  and  Jim  launches  the  rope 
with  a  swirling  swoop  which  rarely  fails  in  its  aim. 
Enjoying  this  very  much,  the  little  cow  horse  sets 
back  on  its  hind  legs,  and  the  poor  calf  comes  over, 
to  be  dragged  to  the  iron  and  treated  as  it  would  have 
been  on  the  spring  round-up  if  it  had  not  in  some  way 
slipped  through  the  lines.  And  as  it  staggers  away 
free  of  the  corral,  the  heartless  cowpunchers  say 
blithely,  "  Did  you  hear  the  ten  dollars  drop  in  the 
box?" 

Some  day,  as  the  cowpuncher  is  riding  his  rounds 
about  the  range,  his  quick  eye  may  note  out  on  the 
horizon  a  faint  cloud  which  has  not  the  appearance  of 
a  dust  trail.  This  he  regards  intently,  stopping  his 
pony  and  looking  steadfastly  toward  the  spot.  The 
little  cloud  does  not  pass  away  or  grow  less,  but  widens 
and  rises,  and  all  at  once  fans  out  on  the  wind,  taking 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  215 

on  the  unmistakable  blue  of  smoke.  There  is  fire!  One 
might  think  there  would  be  no  harm  in  a  simple  little 
fire,  but  not  so  impressed  seems  the  usually  unper- 
turbed cowpuncher.  There  is  something  in  the  sight 
of  this  little  crawling  fire  which  causes  him  to  turn 
his  horse  and  ride  as  hard  as  he  can  for  the  ranch 
house.  He  knows  that  the  whole  range  may  burn,  that 
the  stock  may  be  utterly  robbed  of  their  only  food, 
that  the  ranch  is  to  be  ruined  and  the  cattle  are  to 
starve  unless  that  little  creeping  line  of  blue  can  be 
quickly  met  and  conquered.  He  does  not  pause  to  ask 
how  it  was  started — perhaps  by  accident  of  some  camp 
fire  left  uncovered,  perhaps  by  the  deliberate  act  of 
some  malicious  rustler,  who  would  be  shot  like  a  dog 
if  found  in  the  act  of  firing  the  grass.  There  is  no 
time  to  think  of  anything  but  the  remedy,  if  any  still 
be  possible.  On  parts  of  the  range,  especially  that 
where  the  ground  is  high  and  dry  and  the  grass  chiefly 
the  short  and  scattered  buffalo  grass  or  gramma  grass, 
the  fire  will  not  spread  so  rapidly,  and  can  be  more 
easily  handled,  though  even  there  the  food  of  the 
range  can  be  entirely  destroyed  by  the  flames  which  eat 
slowly  on.  If  the  grass  be  full  and  high,  as  it  is  on 
some  parts  of  the  cattle  country,  more  especially  along 
the  streams  and  valleys,  and  if  the  wind  be  strong  and 
in  the  right  direction,  the  prairie  fire  will  soon  be  a 
terrible  thing.  A  swift  sea  of  flame  will  roll  across 
the  range,  driving  forward  or  destroying  everything 
in  its  path.  Fences  and  buildings,  if  there  are  any, 
corrals  and  stables,  everything  is  in  danger.  If  there 
has  been  a  little  hay  put  up  for  winter  feed,  even  the 
ploughed  fire  guard-  may  prove  insufficient  to  protect 
the  stacks.  There  is  danger  that  the  entire  profit  of 
the  season  will  be  destroyed,  and  all  the  possibilities, 
for  the  ensuing  season  jeopardized.  The  cowpuncher 


216  THE  STORY   OF  THE  COWBOY. 

swears  sternly  as  he  rides,  and  every  man  who  rolls 
out  of  the  house  and  into  saddle  swears  also  as  he  rides 
for  the  flames.  There  is  excitement,  but  there  is  no 
confusion,  for  each  exigency  of  the  calling  is  known 
by  these  men,  and  they  are  ready  with  the  proper 
expedient  to  meet  it.  Some  of  the  men  look  to  the 
buildings  carefully,  back-burning  a  broad  strip  about 
them,  so  that  the  full  sweep  of  the  fire  will  not  need 
to  be  met  there.  This  is  done  by  lighting  fires,  a  little 
at  a  time,  farther  and  farther  back  against  the  wind, 
not  enough  grass  being  allowed  to  burn  at  once  to 
make  a  serious  blaze,  and  the  fire  being  under  the 
control  of  the  men,  who  stand  ready  to  whip  it  out 
with  wet  blankets,  green  rawhides,  or  anything  which 
comes  handiest. 

If  the  haystacks  and  the  houses  be  considered  safe, 
all  the  men  unite  in  fighting  the  main  fire,  which  is  a 
more  serious  and  difficult  matter,  a  dangerous  one  if 
the  grass  be  heavy  and  the  wind  high.  Eiding  along  the 
edge  of  the  line  of  the  flame,  two  cowpunchers  drag  at 
the  ends  of  their  ropes  a  wet,  green  hide,  a  pile  of  wet 
blankets,  anything  which  will  serve  to  drag  down  and 
beat  out  the  flame  which  is  eating  on.  The  men  "  strad- 
dle the  fire,"  one  riding  on  each  side  the  line  of  fire,  so 
that  the  hide  drags  along  the  burning  grass,  the  two  rid- 
ing along  the  edge  of  the  burning  in  this  way,  back  and 
forth,  until  they  have  dragged  out  and  smothered  down 
the  flames,  or  found  their  attempt  a  hopeless  one. 
Sometimes  this  work  may  go  on  for  hours,  and  it  may 
be  either  in  the  day  or  the  night,  as  the  case  may  hap- 
pen. Though  they  be  hot  and  tired  and  thirsty  from 
the  long  hours  of  work  in  the  withering  heat,  they  do 
not  pause,  but  keep  on  until  the  fire  is  checked  or 
until  it  has  burst  away  from  them,  beyond  all  human 
control,  and  so  rolled  on  across  the  range  in  its  course 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  217 

of  desolation.  It  must  be  a  bad  fire  if  the  cowboys 
do  not  check  it,  for  they  rush  into  the  work  with  all 
that  personal  carelessness  of  fatigue  or  danger  which 
marks  them  in  all  their  work,  and  so  labour  as  long 
as  they  can  sit  their  saddles,  sometimes  coming  out 
of  the  smoke  with  eyebrows  singed  off,  hands  blistered, 
and  faces  black  and  grimed,  their  eyes  small  and  red 
from  the  glare  and  heat  of  the  battle  with  this  enemy 
of  the  range.  When  they  are  through  the  fight  they 
sleep,  eat,  and  vow  revenge.  Ill  fares  it  with  the  man 
who  fires  the  range  if  his  offence  be  ever  traced  to  him. 
This  disastrous  disturbance,  which  imperils  the  wel- 
fare of  so  many  and  so  much,  which  sends  the  cattle 
in  a  frightened  mass  hurrying  across  the  range,  min- 
gled with  the  antelope  and  deer  and  wolves,  which 
must  also  move  before  the  flames — this  is  something 
too  serious  for  even  the  cowman  to  face  with  uncon- 
cern. He  dreads  nothing  more  than  a  fire.  But  his 
diligence  and  skill  in  fighting  the  fire  usually  con- 
fine it  in  such  way  that  it  will  burn  itself  out  without 
a  general  destruction  of  the  range.  If  there  is  little 
wind,  the  fire  may  be  caught  and  stopped  at  a  road- 
way, or  at  a  dry  creek  bed,  or  on  high,  hard  ground, 
where  the  rocks  and  bare  earth  give  the  fighters  a 
better  chance  to  wipe  out  the  flames.  Behind  the  ulti- 
mate edge  of  the  fire's  progress,  back  to  the  point 
where  the  cowpuncher  first  saw  the  tiny  line  of  smoke, 
there  may  lie  a  dozen  miles  of  blackened,  smoking 
prairie,  where  in  the  spring  the  wild  plovers  will 
whistle  and  the  big  curlews  with  bent  bills  will 
stalk  about  and  utter  their  wild  and  shrilly  mellow 
calls. 

Such  may  be  some  of  the  incidents  of  a  day  on 
the  ranch  in  one  part  or  another  of  the  cattle  coun- 
try, local  conditions,  of  course,  affecting  the  daily 


218  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

routine  and  the  general  features  of  the  work.  It  may 
be  seen  that  the  cowboy  is  rather  a  watchman  than  a 
labourer,  a  guard  rather  than  a  workman.  His  life 
;.t  the  ranch  is  rather  one  of  alertness  than  of  exer- 
tion. Yet  his  is  no  easy  or  idle  task,  as  any  one  may 
find  who,  not  bred  to  the  work,  undertakes  to  do  it 
for  the  first  time.  What  seems  so  easy  is  really  difficult. 
It  would  take  years  of  practice  to  rival  the  cowboy 
in  some  of  the  simplest  features  of  his  daily  occupation. 
He  is  in  a  way  a  skilled  labourer,  competent  only  after 
long  and  hard  years  of  apprenticeship.  To  measure 
the  force  of  this  assertion,  let  us  suppose  that  the 
affairs  of  a  single  ranch  district  were  left  for  a  season 
in  the  hands  of  other  than  skilled  cowboys,  the  place 
of  the  latter  being  taken  by  men  who  could  not  sit  a 
"  mean "  horse,  who  could  not  rope  and  throw  a 
steer,  and  who  had  had  no  experience  in  reading  range 
brands.  Would  not  a  round-up  conducted  by  such  gen- 
tleman be  a  pleasing  affair?  Would  not  a  drive  left 
to  such  hands  be  a  reminiscence  to  dwell  upon  in  after 
years?  How  would  the  season's  profits  come  out  if 
many  ranch  owners  had  cowboys  about  as  skilful,  let 
us  say,  as  they  themselves  in  the  practical  profession 
of  the  cowpuncher?  No  one  ever  heard  of  a  cowboy's 
union  or  of  a  strike  of  cowpunchers;  yet,  if  ever  a 
department  of  labour  had  capital  at  its  mercy,  these 
riders  of  the  range  could  have  if  they  chose.  Suppose 
that  there  was  a  general  walk-out  of  the  cowboys  on 
a  round-up  just  as  the  herd  was  formed  for  the  cutting 
out,  it  being  further  added  that  each  cowpuncher  had' 
a  gun  and  a  playful  way  of  using  it!  There  is  a  theme 
for  some  writer  of  short  stories  on  Western  life,  and 
sufficiently  inaccurate  to  be  inviting.  Such  a  scene 
could  never  occur  in  actual  life,  because  the  cow- 
puncher does  not  hold  himself  as  a  servant,  but  as  his 


A  DAY  AT  THE  RANCH.  219 

own  master.  He  has  no  delegates,  and  belongs  to  no 
society  save  that  of  the  plains,  which  has  time  out  of 
mind  been  a  society  of  the  individual,,  embraced  under 
no  classification  and  subject  to  no  control  beyond  that 
of  personal  honour. 

Our  friend  Jim — and  proud  may  you  be  if  he  calls 
you  friend! — is  a  man  able  to  read  brands  and  ride 
horses,  to  follow  sign  and  mark  calves,  to  ride  all 
day  and  all  night,  to  go  hungry  and  thirsty,  to  go 
without  shelter  or  home  or  guidance,  always  having  in 
mind  the  thing  he  started  out  to  do,  the  duty  that  is 
to  be  performed.  This  duty  he  will  do  without  over- 
seeing. He  is  his  own  overseer.  He  needs  no  instruc- 
tion nor  advice.  No  higher  type  of  employee  ever  ex- 
isted, nor  one  more  dependable.  The  rudest  of  the 
rude  in  some  ways,  he  is  the  very  soul  of  honour  in  all 
the  ways  of  his  calling.  The  very  blue  of  the  sky, 
bending  evenly  above  all  men  alike,  has  reflected  into 
his  heart  the  instinct  of  justice — that  justice  which  is 
at  the  core  of  all  this  wild  trade  of  the  range.  It  is 
not  the  ranchman,  the  man  who  puts  the  money  into 
the  business,  who  is  the  centre  of  the  occupation.  It 
is  not  he  who  has  made  the  cattle  business.  It  is  the 
cowpuncher,  whom  you  may  be  glad  to  have  call  you 
friend. 

The  actual  life  in  the  saddle  of  an  active  cowboy 
is  not  a  long  one  upon  the  average,  for  the  hardships 
of  it  are  too  steady,  the  accidents  too  common.  Any 
injury  received  in  the  pursuit  of  his  calling  he  bears 
stoically,  after  the  fashion  of  the  plains,  whose  prece- 
dents were  established  where  there  was  "  lack  of  wom- 
an's nursing,  there  was  dearth  of  woman's  tears." 
Under  all  the  ills  of  life  the  cowboy  "'quits  himself 
like  a  man."  That  is  his  standard.  There  are  some 
who  ask  for  the  gallop  of  the  cowboy,  and  not  the 


220  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

quiet  trot,  some  who  think  his  crudeness  and  his  wild- 
ness  should  be  made  his  distinguishing  features. 
Kather  let  us  say  that  his  chief  traits  are  his  faithful- 
ness and  manliness.  There  is  his  standard — to  be  a 
"  square  man."  If  you  called  him  a  hero,  he  would 
not  know  what  you  meant. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


THE  man  who  is  strong  rejoices  in  his  strength. 
The  man  who  is  skilled  takes  pleasure  in  the  renewed 
exercise  of  his  skill.  The  old  and  staid  cowboy  might 
not  care  to  run  his  horse  and  rope  his  friends  as  the 
younger  members  of  the  ranch  staff  took  delight  in 
doing,  and  the  foreman  of  the  ranch  might  not  take 
the  interest  in  rifle  and  pistol  practice  that  the  younger 
men  did,  because  he  knew  that  he  could  shoot  well 
enough  already;  but  each,  young  or  old,  followed 
the  life  because  he  loved  it  for  its  freedom  and  its 
outdoor  quality,  the  sheer  attraction  it  offered  to  a 
vigorous  and  energetic  man  who  needed  outlet  for 
his  vitality  and  exercise  for  his  muscles.  It  was  nat- 
ural, therefore,  that  the  chief  amusements  of  the  cow- 
boy should  be  those  of  the  outdoor  air  and  those  more 
or  less  in  line  with  his  employment. 

The  cowboy  was  accustomed  to  the  sight  of  big 
game,  and  so  had  the  edge  of  his  appetite  for  its  pur- 
suit worn  off;  moreover,  he  had  his  regular  duties  to 
perform,  so  that  he  had  not  always  time  to  go  hunt- 
ing. Yet  he  was  a  hunter,  just  as  every  Western  man 
was  a  hunter  in  the  times  of  the  Western  game.  The 
weapons  of  the  cowboy  were  the  rifle,  revolver,  and 
rope;  of  these,  more  properly  the  latter  two,  as  these 
he  had  always  about  him.  Of  the  "  scatter  gun  "  he 

221 

S^  ^to^N. 


222  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

knew  nothing  at  all,  and  entertained  for  it  a  pro- 
nounced contempt  as  a  weapon  unfit  for  the  use  of  a 
man.  With  the  rope  the  cowboy  at  times  captured 
the  coyote,  usually  after  it  had  been  run  hard  by  the 
dogs,  and  under  special  circumstances  he  has  taken 
deer  and  even  antelope  in  this  way,  though  this  was, 
of  course,  most  unusual  and  only  possible  under  chance 
conditions  of  ground  and  cover.  Elk  have  been  roped 
by  cowboys  very  many  times,  and  it  is  known  that  even 
the  mountain  sheep  has  been  so  taken,  almost  in- 
credible as  that  may  seem.  The  buffalo  was  frequently 
the  object  of  the  cowpuncher's  ambitions,  though 
sometimes  such  a  vaulting  ambition  overleaped  itself. 
An  old  cowboy  who  once  roped  a  full-grown  buffalo 
bull  described  his  emotions  as  decidedly  far  from  pleas- 
ant when  he  found  himself  attached  to  such  a  mon- 
ster. "I  thought  I  could  shore  throw  ary  bull  there 
was,"  said  he,  "  but  that  there  thing  plum  run  off 
with  me  an'  the  bronch'  both,  an'  the  only  thing  I  was 
thinkin'  of  was  how  to  turn  it  loose." 

The  young  buffalo,  especially  the  calves,  were  easy 
prey  for  the  cowboy,  and  he  often  roped  and  made 
them  captive.  Many  instances  are  known  where  these 
animals  were  found  in  the  round-ups  of  the  early  days, 
and  in  such  case  some  of  them  were  sure  to  fall  vic- 
tims to  the  cowboys,  who  often  took  them  home  and 
kept  them.  Buffalo  nearly  full-grown  have  in  many 
instances  been  roped,  thrown,  and  branded  by  these 
enthusiasts,  and  then  turned  free  again  upon  the 
range.  The  beginnings  of  all  the  herds  of  buffalo  now 
in  captivity  in  this  country  were  in  the  calves  roped 
and  secured  by  cowboys,  and  these  few  scattered  in- 
dividuals of  a  grand  race  of  animals  remain  as  melan- 
choly reminders  alike  of  a  national  shiftlessness  and 
an  individual  skill  and  daring. 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  223 

It  required  an  expert  man  to  rope  and  capture  a 
buffalo,,  even  a  calf  but  a  few  weeks  old,  for  the  little 
fellows  were  incredibly  swift,  and  asked  the  limit  of  a 
horse's  speed  and  staying  qualities.  On  a  hunt  for 
bull'alo  calves  in  the  Panhandle  of  Texas,  in  which 
our  party  was  so  fortunate  as  to  take  thirteen  buffalo 
calves,  much  of  the  roping  was  done  by  a  co\vboy  not 
yet  twenty  years  of  age,  who  was  very  skilful  in  his 
calling,  and  an  especially  fine  roper.  He  enjoyed  to 
the  utmost  the  exciting  sport  of  the  buffalo  calf  chase, 
as  well  he  might,  for  few  forms  of  sport  ever  had  a 
keener  tang  than  this.  At  times  the  calves  were  run 
hard  for  over  a  mile  before  the  swift  horses  could  be 
urged  up  close  enough,  and,  after  such  a  chase,  it  be- 
hooved the  roper  to  be  sure  of  his  cast.  Nor  after  the 
successful  cast  had  been  made  was  all  the  trouble  over, 
for  very  often  the  buffalo  cow  would  charge  the  man 
thus  taking  liberties  with  her  calf,  and  then  an  inter- 
esting situation  was  developed.  The  cowboy  did  not 
like  to  release  his  calf  after  the  pains  of  the  long  run, 
and  he  did  not  like  to  lose  his  horse  on  the  horns  of 
the  enraged  cow,  which  pursued  him  steadily  and 
viciously.  There  was  sure  to  be  a  constricted  but  ex- 
citing chase  about  a  narrow  circle,  with  the  rope  as  its 
radius  and  the  calf  as  the  pivotal  point.  In  two  in- 
stances it  was  necessary  to  kill  the  cow  to  save  the 
cowboy  from  death  or  serious  injury,  but  it  was  rarely 
he  missed  his  calf  if  the  horse  could  carry  him  up,  and 
he  never  let  one  free  in  order  to  escape  the  charge  of 
the  mother.  The  offspring  of  some  of  these  calves  live 
to-day  in  the  largest  herd  of  buffalo  now  alive  in  the 
world. 

The  buffalo  has  for  years  now  been  gone  from  the 
range,  and  the  cowboy  will  no  more  rope  the  little 
red  calves  of  the  curly  cattle.  It  will  be  rarely,  too, 


224:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

that  he  will  ever  again  see  out  on  the  cow  range  the 
great  grizzly  bear,  which  once  lived  far  east  over  the 
prairie  country,  but  has  now  gone  far  back  into  the 
mountains.  In  the  past  the  grizzly  was  at  times  seen 
by  the  cowboys  on  the  range,  and,  if  it  chanced  that 
several  cowboys  were  together,  it  was  not  unusual  for 
them  to  give  it  chase.  Of  course,  they  did  not  always 
rope  him,  for  it  was  rarely  that  the  nature  of  the  coun- 
try made  this  possible,  and  sometimes  they  roped  him 
and  wished  they  could  let  him  go,  for  a  grizzly  bear  is 
uncommonly  active  and  straightforward  in  his  habits 
at  close  quarters,  and  his  great  power  and  ferocity 
make  him  an  almost  impossible  customer  unless  all 
things  are  favourable.  The  extreme  difficulty  of  such 
a  combat,  however,  gave  it  its  chief  fascination  for  the 
cowboy,  and  in  several  recorded  cases  a  party  of  cow- 
boys have  succeeded  in  capturing  alive  a  full-grown 
grizzly  bear  with  no  means  thereto  except  their  horses 
and  ropes.  Of  course,  no  one  horse  could  hold  the 
bear  after  it  was  roped,  but,  as  one  after  another  came 
up,  the  bear  was  caught  by  neck  and  foot  and  body, 
until  at  last  he  was  tangled  and  tripped  and  haled 
about  till  he  was  helpless,  strangled,  and  nearly  dead. 
It  is  said  that  cowboys  have  so  brought  into  camp  a 
grizzly  bear,  forcing  him  to  half  walk  and  half  slide 
at  the  end  of  the  ropes.  Such  a  bit  of  wild  life  would 
offer  excitement  sufficient  for  any  man,  it  would  seem, 
and  if  any  man  would  be  fit  for  it,  then  surely  would 
be  the  hardy  and  daring  cowboy.  No  feat  better  than 
this  could  show  the  courage  of  the  man  and  of  the 
horse  which  he  so  perfectly  controlled. 

One  of  the  great  pests  of  the  cattle  range  was  the 
wolves,  which  annually  inflicted  a  great  loss  upon  the 
3^ouns:  stock,  and  against  which  an  incessant  war  was 
waged  by  the  whole  ranch  force,  this  more  especially 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  225 

applying  to  the  great  gray  wolf  known  as  the  timber 
wolf,  buffalo  wolf,  "  loper,"  "  loafer,"  or  "  lobo  "  wolf, 
an  animal  quite  large  enough  to  pull  down  a  yearling 
or  a  heifer  with  the  help  of  not  more  than  one  or  two 
of  its  kind.  So  great  were  the  ravages  of  these  animals 
after  the  buffalo  had  disappeared  and  left  them  no 
prey  but  the  domestic  cattle,  that  regular  campaigns 
were  made  against  them  by  a  class  of  men  called 
wolfers,  who  made  an  occupation  of  hunting,  trapping, 
and  poisoning  them,  more  especially  for  the  bounty 
money  offered  by  nearly  all  the  States  of  the  cattle 
range.  It  was  not  possible,  however,  for  the  most 
energetic  wolfing  operations  to  clear  the  range  of  these 
pests,  for  they  would  drift  in  again  from  great  dis- 
tances; so  the  cowboy  throughout  the  year  had  more 
or  less  opportunity  of  seeing  wolves.  Perhaps  no  wild 
animal  might  better  be  called  his  staple  source  of  sport. 
A  great  many  ranches  kept  good  packs  of  hounds,  usu- 
ally very  large  and  powerful  greyhounds,  with  a  few 
rough-coated  staghounds  or  deerhounds,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  hunting  wolves,  and  no  better  sport  was  of- 
fered in  the  cattle  country  than  this  coursing  wolves 
with  hounds.  The  cowboys  kept  the  pack  in  good 
hard  condition,  for  the  excitement  of  the  horseback 
running,  the  mad  flight  of  the  long  chase,  and  the  en- 
suing bitter  fight  at  the  close  when  a  big  "  gray  "  was 
"  stood  up,"  made  a  sort  of  thing  exactly  to  the  cowboy 
fancy.  In  this  way  a  great  many  wolf  pelts  found 
their  way  to  the  walls  of  the  ranch  house. 

One  remembers  very  well  a  wolf  chase  with  a  ranch 
pack  which  had  killed  many  grays.  The  ranchman, 
riding  out  over  the  range  early  in  the  morning,  saw 
a  heifer  pursued  by  a  pair  of  big  wolves,  which  pulled 
her  down  in  a  little  valley.  The  ranchman  rode 
back  to  the  ranch  at  full  speed  and  called  out  the 


226  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

dogs,  all  the  men,  of  course,  piling  out  and  getting 
into  saddle  as  soon  as  the  nature  of  the  excitement 
was  known.  Wild  enough  was  the  scene,  as  the  en- 
tire force  of  the  ranch,  some  seventeen  dogs  and  a 
dozen  men,  strung  out  at  speed  across  the  country, 
each  man  riding  at  top  speed  and  the  dogs  bounding 
up  at  the  horsemen  and  running  eagerly  about,  as 
though  beseeching  that  they  be  shown  their  game. 
The  kill  was  at  a  distance  of  some  three  miles  from  the 
house,  and  it  happened  that  the  wolves  were  ap- 
proached at  their  feeding  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
before  they  took  alarm.  The  dogs  sighted  them  well, 
and  at  once  shot  forward  with  their  inimitable  burst 
of  speed.  The  wolves,  already  heavy  with  feed,  could 
not  travel  at  their  best,  and  soon  one  of  them,  the 
larger,  was  reached  by  the  head  dog,  a  great  blue 
hound  that  had  killed  many  wolves  in  the  numerous 
fights  of  his  eventful  life.  This  dog  seized  the  wolf 
by  the  side  of  the  neck  and  rolled  it  over  in  its 
stride.  The  wolf  rose  just  in  time  to  be  caught  upon 
the  other  side  of  the  neck  by  the  second  hound,  a 
powerful  red  fellow,  also  of  great  experience.  It  is 
very  likely  these  two  dogs  would  have  eventually  killed 
the  wolf,  large  as  it  was,  for  finally  one  or  other  of 
them  would  have  shifted  and  gotten  the  fatal  grip 
on  the  throat  for  which  they  were  both  manoeuvring, 
and  which  neither  would  have  released  until  the  wolf 
was  dead,  though  possibly  both  would  have  been  badly 
cut  up  before  this  conclusion  was  reached.  As  it  was, 
the  wolf  was  so  very  large  (its  skin  was  six  feet  six 
inches  in  length)  that  it  got  to  its  feet  and  was  actually 
dragging  both  doers  alone:  with  it  as  they  chins:  to  its 
neck,  trying  all  the  time  viciously  to  get  its  teeth  upon 
them,  which  their  skill  in  seizing  prevented  it  from 
doing.  Seeing  that  the  dogs  could  not  kill  without 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  227 

breaking  their  hold,  and  disliking  to  have  such  valu- 
able hounds  cut  up  by  the  wolf,  as  would  be  the  case 
if  it  got  its  jaws  free  for  a  moment,  the  rancher  at 
length  rode  up  and  broke  the  back  of  the  wolf  with 
a  pistol  shot,  so  that  it  was  soon  killed  by  the  dogs. 
The  cowboys  all  loudly  expressed  their  dissatisfaction 
at  the  shooting  of  the  wolf,  for  they  had  all  the  con- 
fidence in  the  world  in  their  pack,  which  they  always 
allowed  to  do  their  own  killing  in  their  frequent  runs. 
In  this  case  the  second  wolf  escaped  from  the  other 
dogs,  which  had  no  dog  among  their  number  large 
and  courageous  enough  to  seize  and  stop  a  gray.  The 
latter  is  a  tremendous  fighter  and  an  ugly  customer, 
so  that  the  ranch  pack  usually  has  a  war-worn  aspect, 
nearly  all  the  dogs  being  covered  with  scars  received 
in  fights  with  wolves  or  coyotes.  The  coyotes  are  run 
into  and  killed  by  good  hounds  without  much  trouble. 
For  this  wild  wolf  coursing  the  cowboys  usually  pre- 
ferred heavy  greyhounds,  though  at  times  there  were 
good  wolf  dogs  among  the  rough  staghounds. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  antelope  can  not  be 
taken  by  any  greyhound,  and  this  is  practically  true 
in  regard  to  the  single  greyhound,  though  even 
then  with  exceptions.  A  pack  of  good  greyhounds 
can  certainly  kill  antelope,  for  the  writer  has  known 
eleven  antelope  to  be  killed  in  one  week  by  a  pack  of 
greyhounds.  In  certain  parts  of  the  country,  too, 
the  white-tailed  deer  offers  sport  to  the  ranch  pack, 
or  at  least  did  at  one  time,  though  perhaps  now  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  country  where  the  deer  could 
be  successfully  coursed  with  hounds.  In  the  Indian 
Nations  the  writer  has  been  out  with  a  pack  of  grey- 
hounds, which  included  a  good  pack  of  ranch  dogs, 
when  three  deer  were  killed  by  the  hounds  in  one  day. 
It  was  very  intense  sport,  and  none  enjoyed  it  better 


228  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

or  were  more  adept  at  it  than  the  cowboys,  who  were 
sure  to  be  in  at  the  death  if  that  were  among  the 
possibilities.  The  fleet  and  hardy  cow  horse  is  never 
seen  to  better  advantage  than  in  this  rapid  and  head- 
long rush  across  country  after  so  swift  an  animal  as 
the  deer,  and  few  riders  but  the  cowboys  could  man- 
age to  keep  in  view  of  so  impetuous  a  chase.  The  deer 
can  outrun  the  horse  on  a  straight  course,  to  be 
sure,  but  if  it  double  or  swerve,  as  it  is  sure  to  do  if 
pressed  by  the  dogs,  it  is  very  likely  that  the  cow- 
puncher  and  his  horse  will  be  near  it  at  the  turns. 
Then  it  is  that  the  cowpuncher  yells  and  spurs  and 
rides  his  best,  his  kerchief  flying  straight  on  the  wind, 
his  hat  front  sitting  back  firm  against  his  forehead 
under  the  impact  of  the  air.  In  such  riding  one  can 
see  some  of  the  finest  horsemanship  of  the  world,  and 
certainly  some  of  the  most  reckless. 

The  mountain  lion  is  another  animal  in  disrepute 
upon  the  cow  range,  because  of  its  fondness  for  young 
calves  or  colts,  but  the  range  and  the  numbers  of  these 
animals  was  always  so  restricted  that  they  cut  less 
figure  than  the  wolves  in  the  annual  estimate  of  losses 
in  ranch  work.  Still,  it  was  not  unusual,  more  espe- 
cially upon  the  southern  range,  where  this  animal 
ranged  farther  out  into  the  open  country,  to  see  one 
of  these  great  red  cats  stealing  off  across  the  plains  in 
its  attempt  to  get  away  unnoticed.  The  cowboy  knew 
perfectly  well  that  a  more  arrant  coward  never  lived 
than  this  big,  hulking  cat,  and  he  had  for  it  a  contempt 
that  not  all  the  panther  stories  of  the  Sunday  news- 
papers, had  he  ever  seen  such  a  thing  as  a  Sunday 
newspaper,  could  have  mitigated.  No  matter  whether 
alone  or  in  company,  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  "  lion,"  he 
made  after  him  at  full  speed.  The  cat  ran  away  with 
incredible  great  leapings,  showing  a  good  turn  of 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  229 

speed  for  a  time;  but  the  savage  little  cow  horse,  which 
enjoyed  such  a  chase  as  much  as  did  its  rider,  was  sure 
to  soon  lay  the  cowboy  well  alongside  if  the  country 
was  open  enough  for  a  little  running.  The  cat  looked 
back  over  its  shoulder,  spitting  viciously,  but  not  turn- 
ing to  fight,  and  in  reality  scared  fairly  to  its  wits'  end. 
The  hissing  rope  soon  clinched  it,  and  then,  no  matter 
whether  the  noose  fell  on  paw  or  neck  or  body,  the 
little  cow  horse  quickly  dragged  the  panther  to  death. 
Wild  enough  sport,  too,  was  such  a  chase  as  this. 

The  cow  range  did  not  often  or  not  long  offer  any 
great  amount  of  fur-bearing  animals.  The  wolf,  the 
coyote,  the  foxes  and  swifts,  the  antelope  and  deer,  were 
the  animals  most  frequently  seen  by  the  cowboy  in  his 
rounds.  In  the  early  days,  or  even  yet,  the  ranch  might 
be  on  a  bit  of  good  fur  country,  but  if  the  cowboy 
found  a  beaver  stream  he  was  more  apt  to  tell  some 
trapper  than  to  trouble  his  own  head  about  the  beaver 
harvest.  At  times  on  the  cold  northern  range  the 
cowboy  bethought  him  of  a  fur  cap  for  the  winter 
days,  and  if  an  otter  came  in  on  some  stream  near 
the  ranch  and  showed  sign  of  staying  about  some 
creek  or  spring  hole  for  a  time,  one  of  the  cowboys 
might  undertake  to  get  his  hide.  It  takes  a  good 
trapper  to  catch  an  otter,  and  the  cowboy  was  not 
always  a  good  trapper.  But  sometimes  he  would  take 
his  rifle  and  lie  at  some  air  hole  through  the  ice  where 
the  otter  came  up  to  breathe,  and  wait  there  for  a 
shot  at  his  game,  which  he  occasionally  got.  Once  in 
a  while  the  cowboy  might  go  out  for  a  look  after  some 
smaller  fur-bearing  animal,  and  he  was  always  ready 
to  join  any  hunting  party  made  up  at  the  ranch  for  a 
day  or  night  hunt  after  wildcats,  "  leopard  cats,"  lions, 
or  other  sort  of  game  which  his  country  might  happen 
to  produce;  but  left  to  himself,  the  cowboy  was  not 
16 


230  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

always  an  ardent  hunter,  especially  when  the  hunt  de- 
manded that  he  go  on  foot,  a  means  of  locomotion 
not  in  accordance  with  his  idea  of  the  human  proprie- 
ties. If  he  could  ride  to  the  game,  any  sort  of  chase 
suited  him.  Sometimes,  if  he  lived  in  a  country  where 
there  was  timber  along  some  stream,  he  might  go  out 
at  night  for  a  'coon  hunt,  for  he  loved  the  noise  and 
flurry  of  the  fight  with  the  dogs  in  the  dark.  Such 
sport  was  possible  only  over  a  very  limited  part  of  the 
cow  country. 

In  some  parts  of  the  country  the  cowboy  carried  a 
rifle  in  the  holster  under  his  leg,  but  this  sometimes 
as  much  for  the  cow  thief  or  rustler  as  for  any  game. 
The  favourite  arm  of  the  cowboy  was  really  the  six- 
shooter,  and  with  this  weapon  he  rarely  hesitated  to 
attack  any  animal  that  came  in  his  way.  Very  often 
cowboys  killed  mountain  lions  with  their  revolvers, 
sometimes  shooting  them  out  of  trees  where  they  had 
taken  refuge.  In  a  few  instances  the  cowboy  has 
ridden  alongside  and  with  his  six-shooter  killed  the 
grizzly,  cinnamon,  or  "  range  bear."  Constantly  in- 
ured to  the  dangers  of  the  open  range,  and  familiar 
with  the  sight  of  large  game,  there  was  no  animal  for 
which  he  had  much  fear  or  reverence.  Really  there 
were  some  small  ones  which  he  feared  more  than  any 
large  ones.  The  bite  of  the  small  plains  polecat  he 
dreaded  above  all  things,  for  he  knew  that  it  was  prac- 
tically certain  to  result  in  hydrophobia  and  death. 
Many  cowboys  lost  their  lives  in  this  way,  being  bit  ten 
by  this  animal  when  it  had  crawled  into  their  blankets 
at  night.  At  the  least  move  of  the  sleeper  the  venom- 
ous creature  would  bite,  and  its  bite  was  accounted 
almost  certainly  fatal.  One  United  States  army  iv<ri- 
ment  stationed  at  an  Arizona  post  lost  thirteen  men 
in  one  season  through  bites  of  the  polecat. 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  231 

The  rattlesnake  sometimes  crawled  into  the  cow- 
boy's blankets  at  night,  but  this  was  a  less  dangerous 
affair,  as  the  snake  was  apt  to  be  chilled  and  stupid. 
Yet  another  creature  much  dreaded  on  the  range  was 
the  centipede,  which  was  also  a  night  traveller.  It  is 
a  tradition  of  the  range  that  if  a  centipede  crawls 
across  a  man's  flesh  the  poison  left  by  its  hooked  and 
penetrating  feet  will  surely  produce  insanity.  One 
instance  comes  to  mind  where  a  cowboy  was  so  poi- 
soned by  a  centipede,  and  who  really  became  crazed, 
although  he  did  not  die. 

The  tarantula  was  still  more  poisonous  than  the 
centipede,  but  seems  to  have  been  less  dreaded.  It  was 
a  favourite  amusement  at  a  cow  camp,  where  these 
hairy  monsters  abounded,  to  get  a  pair  of  them  and 
set  them  fighting,  which  they  were  always  ready  to 
do,  tearing  off  each  other's  legs  with  great  gusto.  A 
winner  of  many  of  these  battles  was  sure  to  become  a 
ranch  pet,  and  was  usually  kept  in  a  tin  can  with  a 
board  over  the  top,  ready  for  action  in  case  anybody 
came  along  with  a  tarantula  which  he  thought  could 
fight,  and  which  he  was  disposed  to  back  for  a  little 
money.  The  thought  comes  to  mind  now,  with  some- 
thing of  horrified  regret,  of  a  certain  pet  tarantula, 
a  scarred  warrior  of  many  battles,  which  was  forgotten 
and  left  thirteen  years  ago  in  a  tin  can  back  of  a 
certain  ranch  house  far  out  on  the  cattle  range.  A 
tarantula  is  a  hardy  animal,  and  can  live  long  without 
food,  but  one  must  admit  that  thirteen  years  is  a  long 
time  for  even  a  tarantula  to  go  without  anything  to 
eat,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  pet  of  the  camp  has 
before  now  departed  this  life  in  a  way  not  deserved 
by  so  redoubtable  a  warrior. 

The  cowboy  was  fond  of  any  kind  of  hazard,  any 
manner  of  fight,  any  contest  of  speed  or  skill  or 


232  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

strength.  Not  much  of  a  runner  himself,  he  would 
back  his  favourite  in  a  foot  race.  Wrestling  and  box- 
ing were  unknown  upon  the  range,  and  it  is  well 
enough  they  were,  as  they  might  have  led  to  more 
serious  matters,  whose  result  would  have  been  a  lessen- 
ing of  the  visible  supply  of  material  for  cowpunchers. 
The  horse  race  was  an  ever-present  and  unfailing 
source  of  enjoyment  for  the  cowboy,  and  if  a  ranch 
had  a  good  quarter  horse  the  whole  outfit  would,  if 
necessary,  "  go  broke  "  in  backing  it,  as  a  matter  of 
pride,  against  a  horse  from  some  other  ranch  or  town. 
Sometimes  the  cowboys  rode  their  own  horses  in  such 
races,  or  sometimes  they  trusted  to  riders  of  lighter 
weight.  No  more  inveterate  gambler  or  horse  racer 
ever  existed  than  was  the  North  American  Indian, 
and  sometimes  a  ranch  outfit  would  "  go  after "  an 
Indian  village  with  some  favourite  running  horse,  and 
both  parties  would  back  their  convictions  to  the  ex- 
tent of  their  worldly  goods. 

Small  enough,  we  may  be  sure,  were  the  amenities 
of  ranch  life,  and  rude  enough  were  the  conditions  out 
on  the  far,  unsettled  country,  where  these  rough, 
strong-natured  men  had  no  society  but  that  of  their 
fellow-workmen,  and  no  amusements  save  such  as  lay 
at  their  hand  in  the  rude  surroundings  of  their  em- 
ployment. Though  these  amusements  were  always 
about,  always  possible,  the  life  of  the  cowboy  was  by 
no  means  taken  up  in  their  pursuit.  He  was  above  all 
things  a  labouring  man,  with  much  to  occupy  his  at- 
tention beside  the  demands  of  sport.  The  romance  of 
the  cowboy's  life  is  best  seen  at  a  little  distance  from 
the  cattle  range.  The  visitor  to  the  ranch  has  an 
enjoyable  time,  for  his  is  the  zest  of  novelty.  The 
cowboy  in  turn  cares  little  for  the  things  whose  fresh- 
ness delights  the  man  from  the  States.  The  cowboy 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  233 

longs  to  see  a  theatre,  to  have  a  trip  to  the  city,  to 
eat  an  oyster  stew  and  all  the  green  "  garden  truck  " 
he  can  hold.  To  him  it  seems  that  all  the  great  pleas- 
ures of  life  must  lie  out  beyond  the  range,  in  the  "  set- 
tlements." The  latter  term  usually  meant  for  the  cow- 
boy, over  the  greater  part  of  the  cattle  range,  some 
squalid  little  cow  town  of  the  frontier,  and  ill-fitted 
enough  was  such  a  community  to  show  the  quality  of 
civilization.  It  may  be  imagined  what  were  the  amuse- 
ments of  the  cowboy  when  he  left  the  range  and  vis- 
ited the  "  settlements." 

The  end  of  the  round-up  or  the  drive,  perhaps, 
found  the  men  of  a  cow  outfit  at  some  such  ragged, 
scattering  little  Western  town.  These  men,  reared  in 
the  free  life  of  the  open  air,  under  circumstances  of 
the  utmost  freedom  of  individual  action,  perhaps  came 
off  the  drive  or  round-up  after  weeks  or  months  of  un- 
usual restraint  or  hardship,  and  felt  that  the  time 
had  arrived  for  them  to  "  celebrate."  Each  and  all  of 
powerful  constitution,  of  superb  physical  health,  and 
of  all  the  daring  and  boldness  inculcated  by  wild  life 
amid  wild  surroundings,  these  men  were  ignorant  of 
fear,  ignorant  of  self-restraint,  ignorant  of  life  in  any 
but  the  narrowest  sense  of  the  word.  Their  vices 
were  few  and  strenuous.  They  were  eager  to  practise 
such  vices  as  they  knew,  and  to  learn  as  many  more 
as  they  could  in  the  brief  time  of  their  visit.  Merely 
great,  rude  children,  as  wild  and  untamed  and  un- 
taught as  the  herds  they  led,  their  first  look  at  the 
"  settlements "  of  the  railroads  seemed  to  them  a 
glimpse  of  a  wider  world.  The  tinsel  and  tawdry 
glitter  of  it  caught  their  eye  as  a  bit  of  bright  stuff 
attracts  that  of  a  babe.  They  sought  to  grasp  that 
which  they  saw.  They  pursued  to  the  uttermost  such 
avenues  of  new  experience  as  lay  open  before  them, 


234  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

almost  without  exception  avenues  of  vice.  Virtue 
was  almost  unknown  in  the  cow  town  of  the  "  front " 
in  the  early  days.  Vice  of  the  flaunting  sort  was  the 
neighbour  of  every  man.  The  church  might  be  toler- 
ated, the  saloon  and  dance  hall  were  regarded  as  neces- 
sities. Never  in  the  wildest  days  of  the  wildest  min- 
ing camps  has  there  been  a  more  dissolute  or  more 
desperate  class  of  population  than  that  which  at  times 
hung  upon  the  edge  of  the  cattle  trail  or  of  the  cattle 
range  and  battened  upon  its  earnings.  The  chapters 
of  the  tale  of  riotous  crime  which  might  be  told  would 
fill  many  books,  and  would  make  vivid  reading  enough, 
though  hardly  of  a  sort  to  the  purpose  here.  It  would 
be  folly  to  attempt  to  idealize  the  cowpuncher  in  his 
relations  with  the  early  "  settlements."  He  was  the 
wildest  of  all  the  wild  men  of  the  West,  and  he  rose 
rapidly  into  a  reputation  which,  unjust  and  inaccurate 
as  it  is  to-day,  has  clung  to  him  ever  since,  so  that 
people  will  have  no  other  cowboy  but  him  of  the  un- 
couth garb  and  the  wild  and  desperate  bearing,  him 
who  swears,  shoots,  carouses,  and  comports  himself 
as  a  general  "  terror."  This  notion  of  the  cowboy  is 
grotesque  in  its  injustice,  but  none  the  less  it  at  one 
time  had  a  certain  foundation.  There  was  a  time  when 
the  name  of  "  cowboy  "  was  one  with  which  to  frighten 
children,  and  it  carried  with  it  everything  of  abso- 
lute disregard  for  law  and  order.  In  the  early  days 
of  the  drive,  at  the  cow  town  it  was  a  regular  and 
comparatively  innocent  pastime  to  "  shoot  up  the 
town."  To  shoot  out  the  lights  of  a  saloon  was  a 
simple  occupation,  and  to  compel  a  tenderfoot  to 
dance  to  the  tune  of  a  revolver  was  looked  upon  as  a 
legitimate  and  pleasing  diversion  such  as  any  £onile- 
mnn  of  the  range  might  enjoy  to  his  full  satisfaction. 
If  a  cowboy  wanted  a  drink,  he  shot  a  hole  in  a  whisky 


THE  COWBOY'S  AMUSEMENTS.  235 

barrel  and  helped  himself.  As  the  revolver  was  thus 
first  in  peace,  so  also  it  was  first  in  war.  All  quarrels 
were  arbitrated  with  the  six-shooter,  and  it  took  slight 
cause  to  start  a  quarrel  when  the  strong  waters  of  the 
settlements  were  doing  their  work.  Hardly  a  night 
passed  without  its  "  killing/5  though  one  never  heard 
of  a  murder.  In  the  town  of  Newton,  Kan.,  one  of 
the  hardest  of  the  hard  cow  towns  of  the  early  trail 
days,  it  is  said  that  eleven  men  in  one  day  "  died  with 
their  boots  on,"  as  the  euphonious  expression  goes. 
The  coveted  art  of  the  six-shooter  was  an  essential  of 
a  finished  education  in  that  country.  The  powerful 
excitements  of  vile  liquor  and  viler  women  stirred  into 
a  malignant  activity  all  the  evil  elements  of  untutored 
and  rugged  natures,  and  the  results  in  many  cases 
were  lamentable  enough.  It  is  strange  that  the  rec- 
ords of  those  days  are  the  ones  that  should  be  chosen 
by  the  public  to  be  held  as  the  measure  of  the  American 
cowboy.  Those  days  were  brief,  and  they  are  long 
since  gone.  The  American  cowboy  has  atoned  for 
them  by  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  faithful  labour,  and 
it  is  time  the  atonement  were  written  for  him  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  by  the  side  of  the  record  of  his 
sins. 

The  stories  of  excess,  the  lessons  of  restraint  were 
the  same  upon  the  cattle  range  and  in  the  cow  towns  as 
they  are  in  the  cities  to-day.  Under  it  all  is  the  same 
human  nature,  seeking  that  which  is  forbidden,  long- 
ing, daring,  sinning,  and  repenting.  The  cowboy  was 
above  all  things  human,  and  he  had  the  failings  of  the 
ordinary  man.  Yet  he  had  his  softer  and  his  more 
reflective  side.  The  man  who  would  carry  a  wounded 
greyhound  five  miles  on  his  saddle  and  nurse  it  for  a 
month  as  one  would  a  child  until  it  recovered  was  a 
man  not  altogether  bad.  If  his  impulses  led  him 


236  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

wrong  at  times — as  whose  shall  not? — he  could  at  least 
with  those  equally  guilty  feel  regret  and  remorse. 
On  the  range  in  the  old  times,  on  the  range  even  to- 
day are  men  drifting  about  like  wrecks  at  sea.  The 
old  West  was  full  of  such  characters,  men  who  knew 
their  own  stories  of  self-reproach,  regret,  remorse, 
despair.  The  outward  reflex  of  such  feelings  was  a  na- 
ture perhaps  silent  or  apparently  surly,  at  times  in- 
flammable and  uncertain.  The  West  in  the  good  old 
days  asked  no  questions  of  any  man.  It  cared  not 
whether  the  younger  cowboys  were  at  times  wild  and 
full  of  freakishness.  It  asked  not  why  the  older  men  at 
times  seemed  never  more  happy  than  when  they  were 
hard  at  work. 

The  amusements  of  the  cowboy  were  like  the  fea- 
tures of  his  daily  surroundings  and  daily  occupation — 
they  were  intense,  large,  Homeric. 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 

SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY. 

THE  West  in  the  good  old  times,  before  the  influx 
of  the  so-called  better  classes,  was  a  great  and  lovable 
country.  We  go  back  to  it  yet  in  search  of  that  vigor- 
ous individuality  which  all  men  love.  In  the  cities 
men  are  much  alike,  and,  for  the  most  part,  built  upon 
rather  a  poor  pattern  of  a  man.  The  polish  of  gen- 
erations wears  out  fibre  and  cuts  down  grain,  so  that 
eventually  we  have  a  finished  product  with  little  left 
of  it  except  the  finish.  In  modern  life  the  test  of 
survival  is  much  a  question  of  the  money  a  man  is 
able  to  make.  The  successful  money-maker  can  buy 
a  part  of  the  desirable  things  of  life,  and  he  may  found 
a  family,  the  latter,  perhaps,  not  begun  in  love  and 
mutual  admiration  of  person  so  much  as  in  admira- 
tion of  the  tangible  evidences  of  that  which  is  called 
success.  Men  do  not  love  women  because  they  are 
rich,  nor  do  women  admire  men  because  they  are 
rich;  and,  after  all,  the  only  problems  of  life  are  those 
of  bread  and  butter  and  of  love.  All  the  rest  is  a  mere 
juggling  of  these  two.  Such  is  the  society  of  the  arti- 
ficial modern  life  of  large  communities.  In  the  West 
the  individual  reigned,  and  there  had  not  been  estab- 
lished any  creed  of  sandpaper.  Should  we  break  up 
the  organizations  of  society  as  it  is  known  to-day  in 
the  focal  points  of  civilization,  should  we  cast  abroad 

237 


238  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  men  of  the  cities  and  bring  in  the  men  of  the  old 
plains,  what  a  changing  about  there  would  be  then! 
Society  and  human  nature  and  the  human  race  might 
be  benefited  by  it.  But  this  may  never  be,  and  in  this 
country,  as  in  the  history  of  all  other  countries,  there 
must  go  on  the  slow  story  told  by  the  ages,  of  more 
and  more  wealth,  more  and  more  artificiality,  more 
and  more  degeneration.  And  yet  good  human  na- 
ture, dragged  by  the  hand  of  the  spirit  of  complex 
civilization,  looks  back  always  at  the  past.  Aside  from 
the  love  of  tinsel,  which  in  time  becomes  a  necessity  for 
many  natures,  mankind  has  always  loved  the  strong, 
because  it  is  only  the  strong  which  is  fit  to  be  loved. 
So  we  go  back  continually,  fascinated,  and  revel  in  the 
stories  of  strong  times. 

Among  the  little  cow  towns  of  the  frontier  the 
searcher  for  vivid  things  might  have  found  abundance 
of  material.  Society  was  certainly  a  mixed  matter 
enough.  It  was  a  womanless  society  for  the  most  part, 
hence  with  some  added  virtues  and  lost  vices,  as  well 
as  with  certain  inversions  of  that  phase.  The  inhab- 
itants might  be  cowboys,  half-breeds,  gamblers,  team- 
sters, hunters,  freighters,  small  storekeepers,  petty 
officials,  dissipated  professional  men.  The  town  was 
simply  an  eddy  in  the  troubled  stream  of  Western  im- 
migration, and  it  caught  the  odd  bits  of  drift  wood 
and  wreck — the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  a  chaotic  flood. 

In  the  life  of  a  modern  business  community  a  man 
must  beware  of  too  much  wisdom.  The  specialist  is 
the  man  who  succeeds,  and  having  once  set  his  hand 
to  an  occupation,  one  dare  never  leave  it,  under  pen- 
alty of  failure  in  what  he  has  chosen  as  his  life  work. 
In  the  city  he  who  shifts  and  changes  his  employment 
loses  the  confidence  of  his  fellow-mortals,  who  agree 
that  he  should  know  how  to  do  one  thing  and  nothing 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  239 

else,  and  should  continue  to  do  it  diligently  all  his  life. 
In  the  West  all  this  was  different.  Versatility  was  a 
necessity.  The  successful  man  must  know  how  to  do 
many  things.  The  gleanings  of  any  one  field  of  activ- 
ity were  too  small  to  afford  a  living  of  themselves. 
This  fact  was  accepted  by  the  citizens  of  the  country, 
sometimes  with  the  grim  humour  which  marked  the 
West.  A  young  lawyer  in  a  Western  town  had  out 
a  sign  which  read,  "  John  Jones,  Attorney-at-Law. 
Real  Estate  and  Insurance.  Collections  promptly  at- 
tended to  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night.  Good 
Ohio  cider  for  sale  at  5  cents  a  glass."  A  storekeeper 
had  on  his  window  the  legend,  "  Wall  Paper  and  Mar- 
riage Licenses,"  thus  announcing  two  commodities  for 
which  there  was  but  very  small  demand.  One  of  the 
prominent  citizens  of  such  a  town  was  a  gambler,  a 
farmer,  a  fighter,  and  a  school  teacher  all  in  one.  One 
of  the  leaders  of  the  rustlers  and  cattle  thieves  who 
made  a  little  cow  town  their  headquarters  was  a  Meth- 
odist minister.  It  was  not  unusual  for  a  justice  of  the 
peace  to  be  a  barber.  The  leading  minister  of  a  certain 
thriving  cow  town,  which  experienced  a  "  boom  "  in 
the  early  railroad  days,  eked  out  his  scanty  salary  by 
working  as  a  sign  painter  during  the  week.  There 
seemed  to  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country 
nothing  incongruous  in  this  mixing  up  of  occupations, 
it  being  taken  for  granted  that  a  man  would  endeavour 
to  make  a  living  in  the  ways  for  which  he  seemed  best 
fitted. 

In  any  early  cow  town  or  mining  camp  of  the  West 
there  was  sure  to  be  a  man  from  Leavenworth.  No 
apparent  reason  for  this  curious  fact  seems  ever  to  have 
been  given,  yet  it  is  certainly  true  that  no  such  town 
ever  was  settled  without  a  man  from  Leavenworth  to 
take  part  in  the  inauguration.  He  was  apt  afterward 


240  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

to  be  one  of  the  town  officers.  He  was  nearly  always 
a  lawyer,  or  claimed  to  have  once  been  one.  He  was 
sure  to  be  the  first  justice  of  the  peace,  and  in  that 
capacity  of  high  dignity  presented  an  interesting  spec- 
tacle. The  early  Western  justice  of  the  peace  was  a 
curious  being  at  best.  Apt  to  be  fully  alive  to  his 
own  importance,,  he  presided  at  his  sessions  with  a 
wisdom  and  solemnity  not  to  be  equalled  in  the  most 
august  courts  of  the  land.  It  was  rarely  that  the  jus- 
tice knew  much  law,  but  he  nearly  always  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  parties  to  any  suit  and  with  the 
prisoner  who  happened  to  be  at  bar,  and  usually  he 
had  a  pretty  accurate  idea  of  what  he  was  going  to  do 
with  the  case  before  it  came  up  for  trial.  It  may  have 
been  such  a  justice  as  this  of  whom  the  story  is  told 
that  he  made  the  defendant's  lawyer  sit  down  when  he 
arose  to  reply  to  the  arguments  of  the  prosecution, 
saying  that  the  counsel's  talk  served  to  "  confuse 
the  mind  of  the  court."  Yet  the  frontier  justice  of 
the  peace  usually  came  well  within  the  bounds  of 
common  sense  in  his  decisions,  as  witness  the  ruling 
of  that  Texas  justice  who  gravely  declared  "uncon- 
stitutional "  a  certain  State  law  which  restricted  the 
sale  of  liquor  in  his  town  in  many  unwelcome  ways, 
he  holding  that  such  a  law  must  necessarily  be  con- 
trary to  public  policy  and  against  good  morals.  This 
man  was  later  elected  to  the  State  senate. 

The  first  female  inhabitants  of  the  town  were  also 
sure  to  come  from  Kansas.  There  seems  to  be  no  spe- 
cial reason  for  this  curious  feature  of  the  fauna  of 
the  cow  town  in  the  early  days,  and  it  seems  difficult 
to  tell  why  all  the  men  seemed  to  have  left  Leaven- 
worth  and  all  the  women  to  have  abandoned  the  State 
of  Kansas,  though  the  fact  remained  none  the  less  ap- 
parent. The  family  from  Kansas  nearly  always  came 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  241 

In  a  wagon,  and  among  the  family  there  were  usually 
two  or  three  girls,  sure  to  become  objects  of  admira- 
tion for  a  large  cowboy  contingent  in  a  short  period 
of  time.  There  never  was  a  cow  town  which  did  not 
have  a  family  including  "  them  girls  from  Kan- 
sas/' and  their  fame  was  sure  to  be  known  abroad 
all  over  the  local  range.  One  by  one  the  girls  from 
Kansas  disappearead  down  the  tortuous  road  of 
matrimony,,  yet  still  the  supply  seemed  unexhausted, 
more  girls  coming  from  Kansas  in  some  mysterious 
way. 

There  was  always  a  Jew  merchant  in  any  cow  town, 
who  handled  the  bulk  of  the  business  in  general  sup- 
plies. The  infallible  instinct  of  his  kind  led  him  to 
a  place  so  free  with  its  money  and  so  loose  in  its  busi- 
ness ideas.  The  Jew  did  not  come  from  Kansas,  but 
dropped  down  from  above,  came  up  from  below,  or 
blew  in  upon  the  wind,  no  one  knew  how,  but  he  was 
always  there.  He  advertised  in  the  local  paper,  com- 
plaining about  the  rates,  of  course.  "  Keep  your  eye 
on  Whiteman "  read  his  advertisement,  and  "  Geep 
your  eye  on  Viteman  "  was  the  burden  of  his  talk  to 
his  customers.  It  was,  indeed,  a  very  wise  thing  to 
keep  your  eye  on  Whiteman,  though  perhaps  the 
latter  did  not  mean  it  in  that  way  in  his  boastful 
advice. 

There  was  always  a  sheriff  in  a  cow  town,  and  he 
was  always  the  same  sort  of  man — quiet,  courageous, 
just,  and  much  respected  by  his  fellow-men.  The  pub- 
lic of  the  cow  town  had  little  real  respect  for  the 
courts,  and  the  judicial  side  of  the  law  was  sometimes 
farcical;  but,  by  some  queer  inversion  of  the  matter, 
all  had  respect  for  the  executive  side  of  the  law,  and 
indeed,  recognised  that  side  alone  as  the  law  itself. 
The  sheriff  was  the  law.  He  was  worthy  of  this  feel- 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ing,  for  nearly  always  he  was  a  strong  and  noble  na- 
ture, worthy  of  an  unqualified  admiration. 

There  was  always  a  barber  in  a  cow  town,  and  when 
a  town  \vas  so  run  down  that  it  could  not  support  a 
barber  it  was  spoken  of  with  contempt.  There  might 
not  be  any  minister  of  the  Gospel  or  any  church,  but 
there  were  two  or  three  saloons,  which  served  as  town 
hall  and  general  clubrooms,  being  the  meeting  places 
of  the  inhabitants.  There  was  no  dentist  or  doctor, 
though  there  might  be  a  druggist,  who  kept  half  a 
dozen  or  so  jars  and  bottles.  If  a  cowpuncher  wanted 
a  little  alum  to  cure  a  hide,  the  druggist  charged  him 
at  about  the  rate  of  ten  or  fifteen  dollars  a  pound  for 
it,  according  to  the  extent  of  the  need  he  had  just 
then  for  the  money.  If  the  druggist  was  playing  in 
fair  luck  at  the  time  in  the  nightly  poker  game,  alum 
was  cheaper. 

There  was  always  a  little  newspaper,  a  whimsical, 
curious  little  affair,  which  lived  in  some  strange  fash- 
ion, and  whose  columns  showed  a  medley  of  registered 
and  published  brands  and  marks  for  the  members  of 
the  cattle  association  living  in  that  district,  this  busi- 
ness being  almost  the  only  source  of  revenue  for  the 
newspaper.  Of  news  there  was  none,  except  such  as 
all  men  knew.  The  editor  of  the  paper  had  a  certain 
prestige  in  political  matters,  but  led  withal  an  exist- 
ence properly  to  be  termed  extra  hazardous.  The  edi- 
tor always  drank  whisky  when  he  could  get  it,  just 
as  everybody  else  did,  it  being  quite  too  much  to  ask 
that  he  should  depart  from  popular  custom;  but  the 
paper  was  ground  out  from  the  hand  press  every  week, 
or  almost  every  week,  with  a  regularity  which  under 
the  circumstances  was  very  commendable.  Sooner  or 
later,  if  one  paper  began  to  make  more  than  a  living, 
another  paper  came  in,  and  then  life  assumed  an  added 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  243 

interest  with  the  inhabitants.  Both  papers  were  then 
read,  so  that  everybody  might  see  what  one  editor  was 
saying  of  the  other.  The  second  editor  was  nearly 
always  a  more  vindictive  man  than  the  first  one,  and 
he  drank  more  whisky,  and  wrote  worse  English  and 
had  a  redder  nose;  but  he  added  life  to  the  town,  and 
he  was  sure  of  a  fair  showing  until  at  some  unfortunate 
time  he  said  the  wrong  thing.  This  wrong  thing  was 
never  far  away  in  the  journalism  of  the  range.  It  be- 
hooved the  editor  to  be  careful  in  his  criticism  of  any 
one,  and  always  to  be  sure  to  "  boom  the  town/'  no 
matter  what  else  might  be  omitted. 

One  of  the  owners  of  the  saloons  was  sure  to  be  a 
gambler  as  well  as  a  dispenser  of  fluids.  He  had  more 
money  than  anybody  else,  and  also  a  surer  chance  of 
sudden  death.  He  always  killed  one  or  two  men  before 
his  own  time  came,  but  his  time  came  some  day.  He 
was  then  properly  mourned  and  buried,  and  the  affair 
was  discreetly  mentioned  in  the  papers.  If  it  seemed 
that  the  gambler's  partner  was  getting  too  "  bad  "  to 
be  needed  in  the  economy  of  the  town,  he  was  asked 
to  "  move  on,"  and  this  he  was  wise  enough  to  do. 
Another  gambler  came  in  then. 

The  lawyer  of  the  town  was  something  of  a  per- 
sonage. His  library  did  not  amount  to  so  much,  con- 
sisting probably  of  not  more  than  two  or  three  books, 
not  very  many,  for  one  can  not  carry  many  books 
when  on  foot,  and  the  lawyer  nearly  always  walked 
into  town;  but  the  lawyer  had  all  the  authorities  in 
his  head,  and  so  did  not  need  a  library.  The  lawyer 
was  naturally  a  candidate  for  the  territorial  council, 
for  county  assessor,  or  anything  else  that  had  any 
pay  attached  to  it.  Of  strictly  legal  work  there  was 
not  much  to  do,  but  the  lawyer  always  remembered 
his  dignity,  and  you  could  always  tell  him  in  a  crowd, 


244  THE  STORY   OF  THE  COWBOY. 

for  he  was  the  only  man  in  the  town  who  did  not 
wear  "  chaps  "  or  overalls.  The  lawyer  and  the  county 
surveyor  sometimes  had  work  to  do  in  settling  the 
lines  of  a  homestead  or  some  such  thing  when  water 
rights  were  in  dispute.  He  had  no  occasion  to  prose- 
cute or  defend  any  client  for  theft,  for  everybody  in 
that  country  was  afraid  to  steal;  and  burglary  was  a 
crime  unknown.  It  was  rarely  that  a  man  was  prose- 
cuted for  horse  stealing;  never,  unless  the  sheriff  got 
to  him  first.  A  "  killing "  sometimes  gave  the  law- 
yer a  chance,  but  this  was  not  a  thing  to  make  much 
stir  about,  and  very  often  the  killer  was  set  free,  be- 
cause it  was  usually  certain  that  the  other  man  would 
have  killed  him  if  he  could,  and  that  is  defence  at  law. 
Much  more  interesting  was  it  when  a  man  was  shot 
and  not  killed,  alike  for  the  rarity  of  the  occasion  and 
for  its  probable  consequences.  Everybody  wondered 
then  which  would  be  the  one  to  get  killed  when  he  was 
well  and  around  shooting  again. 

The  cow  town  was  very  proud  of  any  public  im- 
provements, very  resentful  of  any  attempt  to  cast 
slight  upon  such  improvements,  and  very  jealous  of 
the  pretensions  of  any  other  town  of  its  neighbour- 
hood. It  being  rumoured  that  a  certain  foothills  city 
over  toward  the  edge  of  the  range  was  to  have  a  rail- 
road tunnel  which  would  add  to  its  attractions,  it  was 
gravely  suggested  by  the  citizens  of  a  rival  town 
located  well  out  on  the  plains  that  the  latter  should 
also  have  a  tunnel,  and  not  allow  itself  to  be  surpassed 
in  the  "  race  of  progress  "  by  any  "  one-armed  sheep- 
herding  village."  The  county  surveyor  lost  popularity 
because  he  tried  to  point  out  how  expensive  it  would 
be  to  construct  a  tunnel  out  on  the  prairie. 

The  first  coal-burning  stove,  the  first  piano,  the  first 
full-length  mirror  to  come  to  town  made  each  an  occa- 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  245 

sion  of  popular  rejoicing.  At  a  time  when  all  was  pro- 
gressing as  usual  in  the  leading  saloon  of  such  a  town 
one  evening,  two  of  the  players  at  a  card  table,  without 
word  of  warning,  arose  and  began  shooting  at  each 
other  in  the  celeritous  yet  painstaking  fashion  of  the 
country.  They  were  both  caught  by  friends  before 
any  damage  was  done  to  either  man,  but  the  aim  of 
one  being  disconcerted  by  the  grasp  upon  his  wrist, 
his  bullet  missed  its  mark  and  shattered  the  stove  door, 
on  the  big  new  stove  which  was  the  boast  of  the  com- 
munity. For  this  careless  shooting  he  received  a  gen- 
eral censure. 

One  time  there  came  to  a  certain  cow  town  on  the 
range  a  Missouri  family  who  brought  along  a  few  hogs, 
about  half  a  dozen  young  porkers  of  very  ordinary 
appearance,  but  which  none  the  less  became  the  ob- 
jects of  a  popular  ovation,  as  being  the  first  hogs  ever 
brought  in  on  the  range,  and  an  attraction  which  it 
was  not  pretended  could  be  duplicated  by  the  rival 
town  over  in  the  foothills.  These  hogs  were  the  pride 
of  the  settlement  for  some  time,  until  at  an  evil  hour 
they  chanced  to  be  spied  by  a  drunken  cowpuncher, 
who  was  visiting  town  that  day  and  enjoying  himself 
according  to  his  lights.  When  the  cowpuncher  saw 
these  new  and  strange  creatures  in  the  streets  of  the 
town,  he  at  once  went  back  to  his  horse,  got  his  rifle 
from  his  saddle,  and  forthwith  inaugurated  a  hunt 
after  them,  this  resulting  in  the  early  and  violent  death 
of  all  the  "  shotes."  No  one  objected  in  the  least  to 
his  shooting  in  the  streets,  for  that  was  the  privilege 
of  all  men,  but  it  was  voted  a  public  offence  to  kill 
those  hogs.  The  cowpuncher  was  censured  by  some 
of  the  citizens,  including  the  druggist,  who  at  that 
time  was  pleasantly  intoxicated  himself,  and  he  would 
have  killed  the  druggist  had  not  the  latter  pleaded 
17 


246  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

that  he  was  not  armed.  The  cowpuncher,  very  fairly, 
it  must  be  acknowledged,  told  the  druggist  to  go  back 
to  his  store  and  get  his  gun,  and  then  to  come  on  and 
they  would  have  their  little  matter  out  together.  With 
this  invitation  the  druggist  complied,  and  soon  ap- 
peared at  the  corner  of  his  cabin  with  a  long  six-shooter 
in  hand,  calling  to  the  cowpuncher  to  come  on  down 
the  street  and  be  killed  like  a  gentleman.  The  street 
was  properly  cleared  for  the  accommodation  of  the 
two,  a  number  of  us  stepping  into  the  newspaper 
office,  and  standing  well  back  inside  the  door,  though 
with  heads  out  to  see  what  was  going  to  happen. 

At  this  moment  there  appeared  on  the  scene  the 
sheriff  of  the  county,  who  had  concluded  that  this 
was  a  matter  of  sufficient  note  to  warrant  his  inter- 
ference. The  sheriif  was  a  large,  burly  man,  who 
spoke  very  little  at  any  time  and  was  now  quite  silent 
as  he  walked  up  the  street  steadily,  without  any  hurry, 
into  a  line  directly  between  the  hostile  forces.  His 
hands,  with  the  thumbs  lightly  resting  in  his  belt, 
made  no  move  toward  the  long  guns  which  hung  at 
each  side.  His  face  was  quite  calm  and  stolid,  and 
with  a  certain  dignity  not  easy  to  forget.  As  he  passed 
the  newspaper  office,  some  one  made  some  light  re- 
mark to  him — for  all  the  time  he  was  walking  straight 
up  to  the  rifle  of  the  cowpuncher,  who  was  warning 
him  to  step  aside,  so  that  he  could  kill  the  druggist, 
whom  he  appeared  to  dislike  at  the  time.  To  the  re- 
mark the  sheriff  made  no  answer,  but  turned  his  heavy, 
solemn  face,  with  a  look  which  said  plainly  that  in 
his  opinion  a  man  ought  not  to  be  interrupted  when  he 
was  in  pursuit  of  a  duty  which  might  end  in  his  death. 
The  sheriff  was  not  afraid,  but  he  knew  what  was  to 
be  done.  The  deputy,  who  accompanied  him,  was 
white  as  paper  and  evidently  badly  scared.  The  two 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  247 

walked  on  up  the  street  slowly,  the  sheriff  never  hasten- 
ing a  step,  until  finally  they  reached  the  place  where 
the  cowpuncher  stood,  the  latter  having  been  puz- 
zled by  the  slow  and  quiet  advance  until  he  had  for- 
gotten to  begin  shooting,  though  the  druggist  con- 
tinued to  shout  out  defiance.  The  sheriff  said  noth- 
ing, and  made  no  attempt  to  pull  his  gun,  or  to  cover 
his  man  in  the  style  usually  mentioned  in  lurid  West- 
ern literature.  He  simply  reached  out  his  hand  and 
took  the  cowpuncher's  rifle  away  from  him,  setting  it 
down  against  the  side  of  a  near-by  house.  Then  he 
said:  "  Now,  Jack,  you  d — d  little  fool  you,  I  don't 
want  no  more  of  this.  You  go  on  down  to  my 
house  an'  go  to  bed  to  onct,  an'  don't  you  come  out 
till  you  git  plum  sober.  Go  on,  now."  And  Jack 
went. 

The  sheriff  then  went  on  down  to  the  druggist, 
who  had  by  this  time  slipped  into  his  store  and  hid 
his  gun.  Him  the  sheriff  rated  well  as  a  disturber, 
but  did  not  take  in  charge  at  all.  The  loss  of  the 
"  shotes  "  was  generally  lamented,  but  on  the  follow- 
ing morning  Jack  apologized  about  that,  paid  for  the 
"  shotes,"  invited  everybody  to  drink  to  their  memory, 
and  at  the  suggestion  of  friends  both  he  and  the  drug- 
gist shook  hands  over  the  matter  and  forgot  all  about 
it.  This  affair  of  course  never  got  into  the  courts,  as 
indeed  why  should  it?  The  settlement  reached  was 
eminently  the  wisest  and  most  effectual  thing  that 
could  have  been  done,  and  showed  well  enough  the 
sterling  common  sense  of  the  sheriff,  who  retained 
the  friendship  of  all  parties.  His  deputy,  if  left  alone, 
would  have  tried  to  "  cover  his  man,"  would  very  likely 
have  been  killed  himself,  and  had  he  succeeded  in  get- 
ting his  man  to  jail  the  latter  would  very  likely  have 
killed  the  druggist  as  a  point  of  honour  as  soon  as  he 


248  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

got  out.  The  peace  and  dignity  of  the  town  were  far 
better  preserved  as  it  was. 

In  the  communities  of  the  frontier  men  were  some- 
times apt  to  be  a  trifle  touchy  and  suspicious  of  their 
fellow-men,  perhaps  a  bit  ultra  in  their  notions  of  per- 
sonal honour  and  personal  rights.  A  cowpuncher  from 
the  Two  Hat  outfit  was  once  heard  explaining  a  little 
instance  of  this.  "  It  was  this  a'  way,"  said  he,  speak- 
ing of  the  recent  killing  over  on  Crooked  Creek  of  Bill 
Peterson,  who  had  been  shot  by  his  neighbour,  a  man 
by  name  of  Sanders.  "  Peterson  an'  Sanders  had  both 
of  'em  started  hen  ranches,  allowin'  to  make  plenty 
o'  money  next  year,  when  the  hens  had  sort  o'  got  used 
to  the  range  an'  begun  to  do  well  on  the  feed.  Sanders, 
he  come  in  there  first,  an'  he  'lowed  he  wouldn't  have 
no  one  to  buck  aginst  in  the  aig  business,  but  Peter- 
son he  moves  in  on  the  creek  "too,  and  lays  out  his 
ranch  right  up  agin  Sanders,  an'  that  makes  Sanders 
plenty  mad.  Them  twov  fellers,  they  got  so  blame 
jealous  of  each  other  they  used  to  be  afraid  to  go  to 
sleep,  for  fear  the  other  feller  would  think  up  some 
scheme  or  other.  The  wild  cats  and  coyotes  got  in 
among  the  corrals  like,  an'  before  long  they  mighty 
nigh  cleaned  up  the  whole  cavvieyard  o'  hens  fer  both 
of  'em,  but  they  couldn't  see  it  that  way,  an'  each 
accused  the  other  of  stealin'  his  hens,  which  of  course 
we  knowed  meant  trouble  some  day. 

"  Fin'ly,  these  fellers  got  so  jealous  of  each  other 
that  one  feller  he'd  stay  out  in  his  hen  pasture  all 
day,  a-herdin'  back  the  grasshoppers  to  keep  'em 
from  goin'  on  to  the  other  feller's  range — which 
them  grasshoppers  is  shore  good  feed  fer  hens.  Peter- 
son, he  consults  a  lawyer  about  this,  and  he  comes 
back  and  tells  Sanders  that  grasshoppers  is  crit- 
ters -ferry  natoory,  or  somethin'  o'  that  sort,  and  so 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  249 

they  belongs  to  everybody  alike.  Sanders  he  says  he 
don't  care  a  d — n  about  that,  he  aint  goin'  to  have 
Peterson's  hens  a-eatin'  his  'hoppers,  because  he  saw 
the  place  first.  So  they  at  last  got  to  sort  o'  havin' 
it  in  fer  each  other.  One  day  Sanders  he  come  down 
to  me  an'  ast  me  to  lend  him  my  gun,  because  his  was 
out  o'  order,  an'  he  had  to  kill  Peterson  purty  soon. 
So  I  let  him  take  my  gun,  which  is  a  shore  daisy,  an' 
next  mornin'  he  laid  fer  Peterson  when  he  come  out 
the  house.  Peterson  he  saw  him,  an'  he  come  out 
a-shootin',  but  Sanders  he  was  a  leetle  too  quick  fer 
him.  Sanders  he  quit  the  ranch  then,  an'  now  you 
kaint  get  a  aig  in  this  whole  country  fer  a  dollar  a 
aig,  not  noways." 

In  the  rude  conditions  of  the  society  of  the  frontier 
the  man  of  "  sand  "  was  the  man  most  respected.  If 
one  allowed  himself  to  be  "  run  over "  by  the  first 
person,  he  might  as  well  be  prepared  to  meet  the  con- 
tempt of  all  the  others.  Sooner  or  later  a  man  was 
put  to  the  test  and  "  sized  up  "  for  what  sort  of  timber 
he  contained.  If  he  proved  himself  able  to  take  care 
of  himself,  he  was  much  less  apt  to  meet  trouble  there- 
after. The  man  who  was  willing  to  mind  his  own  busi- 
ness was  not  apt  to  meet  with  the  professional  bully 
or  bad  man  of  the  town.  The  latter  was  a  person  who 
understood  the  theory  of  killing  and  escaping  the  law. 
He  was  confident  in  his  own  ability  to  pull  quick,  and 
it  was  his  plan  to  so  irritate  his  antagonist  that  the 
latter  would  "  go  for  his  gun."  After  that  it  was  a  case 
of  self-defence.  In  the  great  cities  the  man  who  draws 
a  deadly  weapon  is  severely  handled  by  the  law,  but 
in  the  old  days  on  the  frontier  the  bearing  of  arms 
was  a  necessity,  and  their  general  use  made  all  men 
familiar  with  them  and  deprived  them  of  half  their 
terror.  The  stranger  in  the  cow  town  was  at  first  much 


250  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

troubled  when  he  heard  of  a  "  killing  "  next  door  to 
him,  but  soon  he  became  accustomed  to  such  things 
and  came  to  think  little  of  them.  The  fashions  of  a 
country  are  its  own  and  are  not  easily  changed  by  a 
few;  the  change  is  apt  to  operate  in  quite  the  oppo- 
site direction.  It  is  not  the  case  that  all  the  dwellers 
on  the  frontier  were  brave  men,  but  courage  is  much 
a  matter  of  association,  and  comes  partly  from  habit 
after  long  acquaintance  with  scenes  of  danger  and 
violence.  The  citizens  of  the  cow  town  all  wore  guns, 
and  did  not  feel  fully  dressed  without  such  appur- 
tenances. There  was  but  one  respectable  way  of  set- 
tling a  quarrel.  It  was  not  referred  to  the  community, 
but  to  the  individual,  for  in  that  land  the  individual 
was  the  supreme  arbiter.  None  the  less,  many  a  cow- 
ard's heart  has  beaten  above  a  pistol  belt,  and  nowhere 
in  the  world  was  such  a  fact  more  swiftly  and  un- 
erringly determined  than  in  a  primitive  community 
such  as  that  in  question.  Upon  the  other  hand,  the 
rudest  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  community  would 
recognise  the  quality  of  actual  courage  very  quickly, 
and  the  man  who  stood  highest  in  the  esteem  of  his 
fellow-men  was  he  who  had  the  reputation  of  being 
a  "  square  man/'  not  "  looking  for  trouble,"  but  al- 
ways ready  to  meet  it  if  it  came. 

A  wealthy  and  respected  cattleman  of  a  certain 
part  of  the  cow  range  had  a  niece  who  ran  away  and 
married  a  renegade  ranch  foreman  against  whom  she 
had  been  warned.  This  man  soon  began  to  abuse  her, 
and  she  returned  to  her  former  home.  The  quarrel 
was  patched  up,  but  the  girl's  uncle  sent  word  to  the 
husband  that  if  she  ever  was  obliged  to  come  back 
home  again,  she  should  never  again  go  away  to  live 
with  him.  The  husband  sent  back  word  that  he  would 
kill  the  uncle  on  sight.  To  this  the  cowman  made  no 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  251 

reply,  but  he  always  rode  abroad  with  a  rifle  across 
his  lap.  One  day  he  had  word  that  his  enemy  was 
about  to  waylay  him,  and  accordingly  he  was  upon  the 
lookout  for  him.  As  he  entered  the  edge  of  a  bit  of 
wood,  he  saw  the  dutiful  relative  waiting  for  him,  but 
luckily  looking  in  the  wrong  direction.  The  wind 
being  in  his  favour,  the  cowman  drove  up  within  a 
short  distance  of  the  man  who  was  seeking  to  kill  him, 
and  then  calling  to  him,  killed  him  in  his  tracks  when 
he  turned.  In  this  act  he  was  upheld  by  all  the  society 
of  the  range,  and  was  never  in  the  least  called  to  ac- 
count for  it,  as  it  was  thought  he  had  done  quite  what 
was  right  and  needful.  He  was  never  molested  by  any 
more  relatives  after  that.  This  incident  was  long  ago 
forgotten  in  his  history,  and  a  quieter,  more  respected, 
or  more  useful  citizen  does  not  live  than  he  is  to-day, 
nor  one  more  marked  for  his  mildness  and  even-tem- 
pered disposition.  He  did  only  what  in  his  time  and 
under  his  surroundings  was  the  fit  and  needful  thing 
to  do. 

Such  a  man  as  this  was  the  cowman  who  happened 
to  be  standing  in  a  saloon  one  day,  talking  with  some 
friends  as  he  rested  his  elbows  back  of  him  on  the  bar 
against  which  he  wTas  leaning.  The  conversation  was 
interrupted  by  a  cowpuncher  of  the  frisky  sort,  such 
as  in  those  days  occasionally  materialized  in  the  cow 
town  for  a  little  lark.  This  cowpuncher  rode  his 
horse  into  the  saloon  and  up  to  the  bar,  declaring  that 
both  he  and  the  horse  had  come  a  long  way  and  were 
thirsty,  and  must  both  have  a  drink.  His  requests 
having  been  complied  with,  he  began  to  shoot  around 
a  little,  and  drove  everybody  out  of  the  saloon  except 
this  one  cattleman,  who  still  stood  quietly  with  his 
back  against  the  bar,  leaning  back  upon  his  elbows, 
this  directly  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  which  was 


252  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

only  about  twenty  feet  square.  The  cattleman  stood 
there  saying  nothing,  and  finally  the  cowpuncher  rode 
on  out.  When  asked  why  he  had  not  driven  out  the 
"  old  man  "  too,  he  replied  that  he  had  not  seen  him. 

"  You  could  shore  of  seen  him  if  you  looked  hard/' 
said  one  of  his  friends,  "  f er  he  was  right  at  you  there 
in  the  middle  of  the  room." 

"  Well,  I  never  did  see  him,"  said  the  cowpuncher 
gravely.  "  My  eyes  ain't  allus  as  good  as  they  ought 
to  be,  sometimes."  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  reputation 
of  the  "  old  man  "  was  such  that  the  cowboy  was  very 
wise  in  not  seeing  him  and  undertaking  to  run  him 
out. 

Sometimes  in  the  winter  season  society  in  the  cow 
town  would  be  enlivened  by  a  ball.  Such  a  ball  was  a 
singular  and  somewhat  austere  event,  and  one  which 
it  would  be  difficult  to  match  to-day  in  all  the  land,. 
The  news  of  the  coming  ball  spread  after  the  mysteri- 
ous fashion  of  the  plains,  so  that  in  some  way  it  be- 
came known  in  a  short  time  far  and  wide  across  the 
range.  The  cowboys  fifty  miles  away  were  sure  to 
hear  of  it  and  to  be  on  hand,  coming  horseback  from 
their  ranches,  each  man  clad  in  what  he  thought  was 
his  best.  The  entire  populace  of  the  cow  town  was 
there,  the  ballroom  being  the  largest  room  to  be  found 
in  the  town,  wherever  that  might  chance  to  be.  Re- 
freshments were  on  hand,  sometimes  actually  cake, 
made  by  the  fair  hands  of  the  girls  from  Kansas.  A 
fiddler  was  obtained  from  some  place,  for  where  a  few 
men  are  gathered  together  there  is  always  sure  to  be 
a  fiddler;  and  this  well  meaning,  if  not  always  melodi- 
ous, individual  was  certain  to  have  a  hard  night's 
work  ahead  of  him. 

Of  course  there  was  a  great  scarcity  of  lady  part- 
ners, for  the  men  outnumbered  the  women  a  dozen 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  253 

to  one.  No  woman,  whatever  her  personal  description, 
needed  to  fear  being  slighted  at  such  a  ball.  There 
were  no  wall  flowers  on  the  range.  The  Mexican  wash- 
woman was  sure  of  a  partner  for  every  dance,  and 
the  big  girl  from  Kansas,  the  little  girl  from  Kansas, 
the  wife  of  the  man  from  Missouri,  and  all  the  other 
ladies  of  the  country  there  assembled,  were  fairly  in 
danger  of  having  their  heads  turned  at  the  praise  of 
their  own  loveliness.  In  the  Southwest  such  a  dance 
was  called  a  bailie,  and  among  the  women  attending 
it  were  sure  to  be  some  dark-eyed  senoritas  with  man- 
tilla and  reboso,  whose  costume  made  contrast  with  the 
calico  and  gingham  of  the  "  American  "  ladies.  The 
dancing  costume  of  the  men  was  various,  but  it  was 
held  matter  of  course  if  a  cowboy  chose  to  dance  in 
his  regulation  garb,  "  chaps,"  spurs  and  all.  In  the 
more  advanced  stages  of  society  it  became  etiquette 
for  a  gentleman  to  lay  aside  his  gun  when  engaging 
in  the  dance,  but  he  nearly  always  retained  a  pistol 
or  knife  somewhere  about  him,  for  he  knew  there 
might  be  occasion  to  use  it.  Sometimes  the  cow- 
puncher  danced  with  his  hat  on,  but  this  later  be- 
came improper.  There  are  few  more  startling  specta- 
cles, when  one  pauses  to  think  of  it  from  a  distance, 
than  a  cowboy  quadrille  in  which  there  was  a  Mexi- 
can woman  with  only  one  leg,  a  girl  from  Kansas 
who  had  red  hair,  and  two  cowboys  who  wore  full 
range  costume. 

Between  dances  the  cowpuncher  entertained  his 
fair  one  with  the  polite  small  talk  of  the  place;  sur- 
mises that  the  weekly  mail  had  been  delayed  by  some 
mule  getting  "  alkali ed  over  on  the  flats ";  talk  of 
the  last  hold-up  of  the  mail;  statistics  of  the  number 
of  cattle  shipped  last  year,  and  the  probable  number 
to  be  shipped  this;  details  of  the  last  "killing"  in 


254  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  part  of  the  country  from  which  the  cowpuncher 
came,  etc.  Meantime  the  lady  was  complimented 
openly  upon  her  good  points  and  those  of  her  cos- 
tume, not  to  her  personal  displeasure,  for  human 
nature  is  much  the  same  no  matter  where  the  ball  is 
held.  It  sometimes  happened  that  the  lady  was  not 
averse  to  sharing  with  her  escort  of  a  bit  of  the  liquid 
refreshments  that  were  provided.  The  effects  of  this, 
the  stir  of  the  dancing,  the  music,  the  whirl  and  go 
of  it  all,  so  unusual  in  the  experiences  of  most  of  the 
attendants,  kept  things  moving  in  a  fashion  that  be- 
came more  and  more  lively  as  the  hours  passed  by. 
The  belated  range  man,  riding  full  gallop  to  town, 
could  see  from  a  distance  the  red  lights  of  the  win- 
dows at  the  hall,  and  could  hear  afar  the  sound  of 
revelry  by  night.  Excited  by  this,  he  spurred  on  his 
horse  the  faster,  answering  to  the  dancers  with  the 
shrill  yell  of  the  plains,  so  that  all  might  know  an- 
other man  was  coming  to  join  in  the  frolic.  He  cast 
his  bridle  rein  over  the  nearest  corral  post,  and  forth- 
with rushed  in  to  mingle  with  the  others  in  a  merri- 
ment that  was  sure  to  last  to  daybreak.  Out  of  this 
ball,  as  out  of  other  balls,  were  sure  to  arise  happiness, 
heartburnings,  jealousies,  and  some  marriages.  An 
engagement  on  the  plains  was  usually  soon  followed 
by  a  marriage,  and  such  an  engagement  was  not  made 
to  be  broken;  or  if  it  was  broken  to  the  advantage  of  an- 
other man,  there  was  apt  to  be  trouble  over  it  between 
the  men.  Sometimes  the  night  of  the  ball  did  not 
pass  without  such  trouble.  Any  such  affair  was  apt 
to  be  handled  most  delicately  in  the  next  issue  of  the 
paper;  although  funeral  notices  were  not  customary 
there,  the  papers  being  printed  only  each  week  or  so. 

The  cow  town  was  sure  to  have  among  its  dwellers 
some  of  the  odd  characters  which  drifted  about  the 


SOCIETY  IX  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  255 

West  in  the  old  times,,  men  who  had  somehow  gotten 
a  warp  into  their  natures,  and  had  ceased  to  fit  in  with 
the  specifications  of  civilization.  Such  men  might  be 
teamsters,  cowboys,  or  those  mysterious  beings  who 
in  some  way  manage  always  to  live  without  doing  any 
work — these  not  to  be  called  tramps,  for  the  tramp 
was  something  unknown  in  the  cow  town.  Such  a 
man  might  have  a  little  cabin  of  his  own,  with  a  fire- 
place and  a  bed  of  blankets.  Nearly  all  the  male  popu- 
lation of  the  town  was  made  up  of  single  men,  and  of 
these  nearly  all  did  their  own  cooking,  living  in  a 
desultory,  happy-go-lucky  sort  of  fashion,  with  no 
regularity  in  any  habits.  Some  of  these  men  were 
educated,  and  had  known  other  conditions  of  life. 
Bitterer  cynics  never  lived  than  some  of  these  wrecks 

of  the  range.     There  was  Tom  0 ,  a  cowpuncher, 

apparently  as  ignorant  and  illiterate  as  any  man  that 
ever  walked,  but  who  had  his  Shakespeare  at  his 
tongue's  end,  and  could  quote  Bryon  by  the  yard. 
Tom's  only  song  was — 

"  I  never  loved  a  fond  gazel-1-e  ! " 

The  song  rarely  got  further  along  than  that.  A 
cheerful  fatalist,  Tom  accepted  the  fact  that  luck  was 
against  him,  and  looked  upon  life  as  the  grimmest  of 
jokes,  prepared  for  his  edification.  No  matter  how 
ill  his  fortune,  Tom  never  complained,  even  as  he  never 
hoped.  He  had,  too,  a  certain  amount  of  enterprise 
in  his  character.  At  last  accounts  he  was  headed  for 
the  Indian  Nations,  it  being  his  expressed  intention 
to  marry  an  Indian  woman  and  so  become  a  member 
of  the  tribe,  this  being  the  easiest  way  open  to  fortune 
which  offered  to  his  mind.  He  had  several  wives  scat- 
tered over  the  range  at  different  points,  and  at  times 
he  was  wont  to  discuss  the  good  and  bad  points  of  these 


256  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

with  the  utmost  candour  and  impartiality,,  thus  show- 
ing himself  a  liberal  and  philosophical  man. 

The  foreman  of  the  0  T  ranch  was  a  good  cowman, 
who  stood  well  with  the  men  of  his  own  outfit  and  of 
the  neighbouring  ranches.  This  man  never  at  any 
time,  either  upon  his  own  ranch  or  in  town,  was 
known  by  any  other  name  but  that  of  "  Springtime." 
His  accounts  at  the  stores  were  run  under  the  name 
of  "  Springtime  "  and  in  no  other  way.  His  real  name 
one  can  not  give,  for  it  seems  that  no  one  ever  thought 
of  asking  him  what  it  was.  "  Springtime  "  was  a  quiet 
man,  although,  like  Tom  at  times,  given  to  medita- 
tive song.  As  in  the  case  of  Tom,  his  song  never  got 
beyond  the  first  line,  which  jan — 

"  Whe-e-en  the  springtime  cometh,  ge-e-ntle  Annie-e-e-e ! " 

It  never  seemed  to  trouble  him  what  had  happened 
or  might  happen  in  the  springtime,  and  for  him  the 
springtime  never  seemed  to  get  any  closer.  Nor  did 
this  fact  give  concern  to  his  neighbours,  who  gave  him 
the  name  "  Springtime  "  in  all  gravity,  as  being  the 
title  by  which  he  would  be  most  readily  and  generally 
known. 

Other  citizens  of  the  cow  town  were  One-eyed 
Davis,  and  Hard-winter  Johnson,  and  Cut-bank  Bill, 
and  Two-finger  Haines,  and  Straight-goods  Allen,  and, 
of  course,  Tex  and  Shorty  and  Bed,  and  all  sorts  of 
citizens  whose  names  never  got  further  along  than 
that,  unless  in  connection  with  their  respective  ranch 
brands.  Thus,  in  speaking  of  an  event  of  interest, 
down  at  the  saloon  or  store,  the  proprietor  would 
say,  "  Yesterday,  that  feller  Charlie,  from  down  on 
the  Hashknife,  he  comes  in  here  an'  he  says,"  etc. 
And  in  course  of  reply  some  one  else  might  cite  what 
Pinto,  of  the  Hat  brand,  had  said  upon  the  subject; 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  357 

all  men  knowing  by  those  presents  that  there  was 
meant  a  certain  individual  whose  vast  extent  of  freckles 
had  by  common  consent  earned  for  him  the  name  of 
"  Pinto."  No  one  seemed  to  take  amiss  these  cling- 
ing nicknames,  and  indeed  it  was  as  well  to  accept 
them  without  protest.  A  singular  incident  in  a  man's 
life,  or  a  distinguishing  personal  peculiarity,  was  usu- 
ally the  origin  of  the  name.  In  the  simple  and  direct 
methods  of  thought  which  obtained  it  was  considered 
wise  to  give  a  man  a  name  by  which  he  would  be  known 
easily  and  precisely.  There  might  be  many  men  by  the 
name  of  John  Jones,  but  there  would  be  only  one 
Overcoat  Jones — a  man  who  had  the  odd  habit  of 
wearing  an  overcoat  all  summer,  for  reasons  which 
seemed  to  suit  himself,  and  which  therefore  suited  his 
acquaintances.  There  might  be  many  Wallaces,  but 
Big  Foot  Wallace  was  known  from  one  end  of  the 
range  to  the  other.  There  might,  indeed,  have  been 
a  certain  courtesy  in  this  plains  nomenclature.  It 
was  one  of  the  jests  of  the  later  West  to  ask  a  man, 
"What  was  your  name  back  in  the  States?"  but  this 
was  never  seriously  done  in  the  cow  country  of  the 
early  times,  because  it  might  have  been  one  of  the 
things  one  would  rather  have  left  unsaid.  Too  much 
personal  curiosity  was  not  good  form,  and  met  with 
many  discouragements.  Under  the  system  of  the  so- 
ciety of  the  cow  town,  it  was  quite  enough  to  know 
a  man  by  his  local  and  accepted  name,  which  should 
distinguish  him  easily;  and  the  man  was  valued  for 
what  he  was,  not  for  what  his  name  was,  or  for  what 
that  of  his  father  had  been.  Some  cheap  persons  of 
the  later  West  bestowed  upon  themselves  nicknames 
of  rather  ferocious  sort  for  the  purpose  of  impress- 
ing upon  dwellers  of  the  East  a  sense  of  their  wild 
Western  character;  but  the  man  who  had  his  card  en- 


258  THE  STORY  OP  THE  COWBOY. 

graved  as  Dead  Shot  Dick,  or  Charlie  the  Killer,  or 
that  sort  of  thing,  did  not  make  a  practice  of  claiming 
his  title  when  he  was  away  from  the  new  settlements 
and  back  in  the  society  of  the  old  cow  country,  where 
life  was  real  and  earnest  in  its  lines,  and  assertions  of 
a  personal  sort  apt  to  be  taken  up  for  serious  investiga- 
tion. 

In  short,  the  cow  town  of  the  good  old  times  was 
a  gathering  of  men  of  most  heterogeneous  sorts,  a  mass 
of  particles  which  could  not  mix  or  blend.  Of  types 
there  was  abundance,  for  each  man  was  a  study  of  him- 
self. He  had  lived  alone,  forced  to  defend  himself 
and  to  support  himself  under  the  most  varying  and 
trying  circumstances,  very  often  cut  off  from  all  man- 
ner of  human  aid  or  companionship  for  months  at 
a  time.  Needing  his  self-reliance,  his  self-reliance 
grew.  Forced  to  be  independent,  his  independence 
grew.  Many  of  these  men  had  been  crowded  out  of  the 
herd  in  the  States,  and  had  so  wandered  far  away  from 
the  original  pastures  of  their  fellows.  They  met  in  the 
great  and  kindly  country  of  the  old  West,  a  number 
of  these  rogues  of  the  herd,  and  it  was  a  rough  sort 
of  herd  they  made  up  among  themselves.  They  could 
not  blend;  not  until  again  the  sweep  of  the  original 
herd  had  caught  up  with  them,  and  perforce  taken  them 
in  again  among  its  numbers.  Then,  as  they  saw  the 
inevitable,  as  they  saw  the  old  West  gone  forever,  leav- 
ing no  place  whither  they  might  wander  farther,  they 
turned  their  hands  to  the  ways  of  civilization,  and  did 
as  best  they  could.  In  many  cases  they  became  quiet 
and  useful  and  diligent  citizens,  who  to-day  resent 
the  raking  up  of  the  grotesque  features  of  their  past, 
and  have  a  contempt  for  the  men  who  try  to  write 
about  that  past  with  feigned  wisdom  and  unfeigned 
sensationalism.  Among  those  citizens  of  the  old  cow 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  259 

town  were  many  strange  characters,  but  also  many 
noble  ones,  many  lovable  ones.  A  friend  in  that  so- 
ciety was  really  a  friend.  Alike  the  basest  and  the 
grandest  traits  of  human  nature  were  shown  in  the 
daily  life  of  the  place.  Honour  was  something  more 
than  a  name,,  and  truth  something  less  than  a  jest. 
The  cynicisms  were  large,  they  were  never  petty.  The 
surroundings  were  large,  the  men  were  large,  their 
character  was  large.  Good  manhood  was  something 
respected,  and  true  womanhood  something  revered. 
We  do  very  ill  if  we  find  only  grotesque  and  ludicrous 
things  in  such  a  society  as  this.  We  might  do  well 
if  we  went  to  it  for  some  of  its  essential  traits — traits 
now  so  uncommon  among  us  that  we  call  them  pecul- 
iarities. 

A  more  curiously  democratic  form  of  society  never 
existed  upon  earth  than  that  of  the  old  cow  town. 
Each  man  knew  his  own  place,  but  felt  that  that  place 
was  as  good  as  any  other  man's.  In  the  cow  town,  if 
anywhere,  all  men  were  free  and  equal.  Perhaps  no 
better  instance  of  this  curious  independence  in  the  genu- 
ine cowpuncher  could  well  be  found  than  in  the  story 
of  a  certain  ranch  foreman,  whom  we  may  as  well  call 
Jim,  and  his  relations  with  his  employer,  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  story,  was  a  foreigner,  an  Earl  of  something 
or  other,  who  had  come  to  America  to  engage  in  the 
cow  business.  It  seems  that  upon  the  first  day  they 
spent  upon  the  ranch  together  Jim  appeared  at  the 
dinner  table  without  any  invitation,  and  moreover 
without  removing  his  hat.  The  earl  objected  not  only 
to  Jim's  hat  but  to  his  presence,  saying  that  he  was  not 
accustomed  to  dining  with  his  servants.  This  was  an 
error  on  the  part  of  the  earl,  really  a  most  unfortunate 
remark  to  make,  but  in  extenuation  it  should  be  added 
that  he  was  not  to  be  blamed  so  much  for  it,  for  he 


260  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

was  a  newcomer  in  the  cow  country  and  had  had  very 
little  time  to  become  acquainted  with  its  ways.  But 
this  fact  Jim  did  not  pause  to  consider.  Without 
protest  or  parley,  he  drew  his  revolver,  and  so  beat 
the  earl -about  the  head  with  it  as  nearly  to  kill  him, 
though  not  so  nearly,  so  says  the  story,  as  to  prevent 
his  apologizing  freely. 

"  Why,  that  feller/'  said  Jim,  in  a  surprised  and  in- 
jured manner,  when  later  speaking  of  the  occurrence, 
"he  put  on  more  airs  than  a  cook!  .  .  .  But,"  he  added 
later,  "  he  was  all  right  after  that,  an'  after  a  while 
he  got  to  be  a  pretty  good  sort  o'  feller,  fer  a  English- 
man." 

Over  this  vast,  unsettled  region  of  the  old  West 
the  cattle  of  the  cowman  roamed,  and  this  wild  graz- 
ing was  almost  the  only  possible  industry  of  the  coun- 
try. Therefore  the  employments  of  the  cowman's  oc- 
cupation were  practically  the  only  ones  open  to  a  man 
in  search  of  a  means  of  making  a  living.  Almost 
everybody  had  at  one  time  or  another  tried  his  hand 
at  "  punching  cows,"  and  therefore  the  little  towi\ 
which  made  the  headquarters  of  the  surrounding  coun- 
try was  sure  to  have  all  the  flavour  of  the  range.  Its 
existence,  of  course,  depended  upon  the  trade  of  the 
great  ranches  which  lay  about  it,  at  distances  perhaps 
of  forty,  fifty,  or  even  nearly  a  hundred  miles.  Dis- 
tances had  not  the  same  values  in  that  country  that 
they  have  in  the  older  States.  A  neighbour  who  was 
only  fifty  miles  away  was  comparatively  near.  All  the 
supplies  of  the  town  were  freighted  in  perhaps  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  from  the  railroad.  The  rancher 
thought  nothing  of  driving  sixty  or  seventy-five  miles  in 
to  town  to  get  his  groceries.  The  cowboy  would  ride 
thirty  or  forty  miles  after  the  ranch  mail,  and  think 
no  more  of  it  than  one  does  of  going  down  town  on 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  261 

the  street  car.  The  roads  were  usually  hard  and  good, 
and  the  air  pure  and  stimulating.  Either  man  or  horse 
can  endure  very  much  more  physical  exercise  in  the 
country  than  in  the  city,  because  the  air  is  better. 
The  atmosphere  of  the  plains  was  very  fresh  and  pure. 
Now  and  then,  therefore,  the  residents  of  the  town, 
who  perhaps  themselves  had  ranch  interests  or 
"  claims  "  somewhere  out  in  the  country,  would  have 
the  quiet  of  their  daily  lives  broken  by  the  visits  of 
the  men  from  the  cow  ranches,  near  or  far.  Then 
the  merchant  sold  his  goods,  the  saloon  keeper  smiled 
with  pleasure,  the  editor  had  use  for  his  pencil,  the 
lawyer  stood  in  readiness,  the  justice  of  the  peace 
pricked  up  his  ears,  and  the  coroner  idly  sauntered 
forth.  The  cowman  was  great.  He  was  the  baron  of 
the  range.  Cheap  cattle^andjstill  cheaj^r  Mavi»cks, 
free  grass  and|fde^wa^er~^vith  prices  always  rising 
in  the  maj*k£fs  at  the  end  of  the  drive — no  wonder 
cowman  was  king  and  that  money  was  free 
the  range.  No  wonder  that  things  /were  lively 
when  the  cow  outfit  rolled  into  town,  and  that  the 
pleasantries  of  the  men  were  tolerated.  It  was  known 
that  if  they  shot  holes  in  the  saloon  looking-glasses, 
they  would  come  in  the  next  day  and  settle  for  the 
damage,  and  beside  throw  the  saloon  open  to  the  pub- 
lic. Those  were  the  good  old  days — the  days  when  one 
cowman  rode  into  a  restaurant  and  ordered  "  a  hun- 
dred dollars  worth  of  ham  and  eggs  "  for  his  supper; 
or  when  a  certain  cowman  who  had  just  sold  his  beef 
drive  to  good  advantage  came  home  and  "  opened 
the  town/'  ending  his  protracted  season  of  festivities 
by  ordering  for  himself  at  the  little  tumble-down  hotel 
a  bath  of  champagne,  filled  with  the  wine  at  five  dollars 
a  bottle.  He  said  he  wanted  a  bath,  and  that  nothing 
was  too  good  for  him  at  the  time;  and  his  wishes  were 
18 


262  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

complied  with  cheerfully,  though  the  last  champagne 
of  the  cow  town  went  into  the  bath. 

One  can  see  it  now,  the  little  cow  town  of  the 
far-away  country,  a  speck  on  the  great  gray  plain,  the 
mountains  lying  beyond  it,  blue  and  calm,  all  about 
the  face  of  Nature  looking  on^at  it  sleepily,  through 
eyes  half  shut  and  amused,  everywhere  a  strange,  mov- 
ing, thrilling  silence,  that  mysterious,  awful,  fascinat- 
ing silence  of  the  plains,  whose  charm  steals  into  the 
blood,  never  thereafter  to  be  eliminated. 

The  cark  of  care,  the  grind  of  grief,  the  racking  of  regret — 

all  these  things  are  gone,  vanished  from  the  face  of  this 
silent,  smiling,  resting  land. 

A  dard-hued  lizard  on  the  dark-hued  sand  ; 
A  rock ;  a  short  gray  tree ;  an  earth-built  hut. 
Around,  an  edgeless  plain ;  above,  an  equal  sky. 
She  sits  and  dreams.     The  whiteless  blue  of  heaven 
Comes  down  to  meet  the  greenless  gray  of  earth — 
And  compasses  her  dream. 

It  is  high  and  glaring  noon  in  the  little  town,  but 
it  still  sleeps.  In  their  cabins  some  of  the  men  have 
not  yet  thrown  off  their  blankets.  Along  the  one 
long,  straggling  street  there  are  few  persons  moving, 
and  those  not  hastily.  Far  out  on  the  plain  is  a  trail 
of  dust  winding  along,  where  a  big  ranch  wagon  is 
coming  in.  Upon  the  opposite  side  of  the  town  a 
second  and  more  rapid  trail  tells  where  a  buckboard 
is  coming,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  trotting  ponies.  At  the 
end  of  the  street,  just  coming  up  from  the  arroyo,  is 
the  figure  of  a  horseman — a  tall,  slim,  young  man — 
who  sits  straight  up  on  his  trotting  pony,  his  gloved 
hand  held  high  and  daintily,  his  bright  kerchief  just 
lopping  up  and  down  a  bit  at  his  neck  as  he  sits  the  jog- 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COW  COUNTRY.  263 

ging  horse,  his  big  hat  pushed  back  a  little  over  his 
forehead.  All  these  low  buildings,  not  one  of  them 
above  a  single  story,  are  the  colour  of  the  earth.  They 
hold  to  the  earth  therefore  as  though  they  belonged 
there.  This  rider  is  also  in  his  garb  the  colour  of  the 
earth,  and  he  fits  into  this  scene  with  perfect  right. 
He  also  belongs  there,  this  strong,  erect,  and  self-suffi- 
cient figure.  The  environment  has  produced  its  man. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE    NESTER. 

THE  destruction  of  the  cattle  range  was  a  matter 
of  doom.  It  was  foregone  that  all  these  wide  lands 
should  at  some  time  be  claimed  by  those  thousands 
of  human  beings  who  had  taken  fully  upon  themselves 
the  compact  of  society.  The  cowman  is  a  creature 
of  unmeasured  lands,  of  wide  methods,,  of  no  multi- 
plicity of  laws  or  of  acknowledged  obligations.  The 
husbandman  is  a  man  of  small  holdings  of  land,  of  eye 
jealous  of  his  own  rights,  of  reverence  for  the  laws 
whose  protection  he  covenants  in  the  terms  of  his 
surrender  of  personal  freedom  to  the  society  of  which 
he  has  become  a  member.  The  cattle  range  is  a 
womanless  country.  The  farming  country  is  a  land  of 
homes.  Society  is  built  up  of  homes,  and  the  laws  of 
society  will  sooner  or  later  trend  in  favour  of  the  man 
with  the  home  and  the  yoke,  the  more  willing  or  the 
more  helpless  slave. 

The  term  "  nester  "  was  one  applied  in  half  con- 
tempt by  the  cattle  men  of  the  Southwest  to  those 
early  squatters  and  homesteaders  who  first  began  to 
manifest  a  disposition  to  abandon  the  saddle  for  the 
plow,  to  cease  ranching  and  go  to  farming.  The  nester 
might  be  a  cowboy  himself,  who  had  met  his  fate  in 
some  pair  of  eyes  that  held  him  back  from  long  jour- 
neyings.  He  might  be  some  lean  and  sallow  individ- 

264 


THE  NESTER.  265 

ual,  whose  wagon  and  team  had  brought  him  down 
from  some  State  where  things  were  getting  too  much 
crowded  for  him.  Probably  the  first  great  accession 
of  numbers  received  by  the  cult  of  the  nester  came 
from  the  settlements  of  Germans  who,  early  in  the 
century,  were  colonized  in  large  numbers  in  portions 
of  Texas.  There  are  whole  communities  of  these  peo- 
ple in  parts  of  that  State  to-day,  and  most  of  them 
are  valuable  citizens,  but  many  of  them  were  hard 
enough  cases  in  the  early  days,  and  much  disliked 
by  the  native  American  population,  from  whom  their 
ways  differed  in  almost  every  respect.  The  instinct 
of  these  people  was  all  for  farming,  and  they  re- 
tained then,  as  they  do  to-day,  all  their  habits  of  econo- 
my, industry,  and  thrift.  Added  to  this  disposition 
there  was  the  wildness  of  nature  acquired  by  years  of 
free  life  on  the  frontier  in  the  early  days.  These  for- 
eigners kept  pretty  much  to  themselves,  after  their 
clannish  fashion,  and  each  man  was  content  to  till 
his  little  holding,  perhaps  by  some  water  course  or 
spring,  and  concerned  himself  little  about  the  affairs 
of  the  great  cattle  baron  whose  herds  roamed  the 
country  at  large.  It  might  be  that  the  homesteader 
was  really  only  a  squatter,  with  no  actual  title  to  his 
property  at  all,  but  possession  was  ten  points  of  the  law 
in  those  days.  Or  it  might  be  that  he  had  taken  up  his 
land  under  the  State  laws  governing  the  matter  (for 
Texas  was  never  subject  to  the  United  States  land  laws, 
reserving  title  to  her  own  lands  when  she  entered  the 
Union),  or  who  had  bought  his  land  from  some  earlier 
owner  and  paid  for  it.  Perhaps  he  had  a  few  horses 
and  oxen,  a  few  rude  farming  implements,  a  little  flock 
of  sheep  or  goats.  He  had  without  doubt  a  "  woman  " 
and  a  flock  of  children,  some  dogs,  and  a  rifle.  Surly 
and  inhospitable  to  a  degree  some  of  these  foreigners 


266      THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

were,,  giving  no  welcome,  perhaps,  to  the  party  of 
horse  hunters  who  came  over  from  the  nearest  ranch, 
sometimes  refusing  visitors  the  right  to  water  or  to 
camp  in  their  yards,  a  thing  unheard  of  in  the  annals 
of  the  land.  What  was  thus  refused  them  the  rude 
and  spirited  range  riders  customarily  took  for  them- 
selves, telling  the  "  Dutchman/'  as  they  contemptu- 
ously called  their  unwilling  host,  that  if  he  objected 
too  much  they  would  hang  him  to  a  corner  of  his 
own  corral.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  did  do  such 
things,  and  that,  with  the  original  discourtesy,  at  times 
created  hard  feelings  among  the  relatives  of  the  de- 
parted, who  viewed  with  sullenness  every  movement 
of  the  encroaching  cattle  men. 

The  vast  lands  of  Texas  could  not  fail  to  attract 
the  attention  of  persons  contemplating  a  venture  in 
the  cattle  business,  and  at  the  time  of  the  first  "  cattle 
boom"  a  great  many  men  went  into  Texas  for  their 
operations,  among  these  a  number  of  wealthy  foreign- 
ers who  sought  a  place  to  use  capital  and  younger 
sons.  The  country  was  fairly  crowded  with  capitalists, 
who  wanted  possession  of  large  bodies  of  land  for  the 
use  of  their  herds.  Such  a  cowman  would  look  out 
a  tract  of  land,  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  miles  square, 
and  would  lease  or  buy  it,  paying  perhaps  a  few  cents 
an  acre  for  some  of  it,  or  more  for  the  better-watered 
portions.  Public  lands,  school  lands,  railroad  lands 
were  taken  possession  of  in  large  bodies.  These  tracts 
the  cowman  proceeded  to  fence  in,  not  always  being 
very  careful  how  much  he  included  in  his  fence,  so 
that  he  was  sure  he  had  enough.  Inside  the  sweep 
of  his  "  pasture "  fence  he  might  have  the  little 
"  nests  "  of  dozens  of  the  native  small  ranchers  who 
had  settled  first  on  this  land.  These  perhaps  had  their 
roads  established,  over  which  they  went  to  town,  or 


THE  NESTER.  267 

after  their  wood,  or  went  hunting,  or  made  any  of 
their  various  trips  away  from  home.  This  made  no 
difference  to  the  cattle  man,  who  cut  off  the  road,  and 
perhaps  left  no  gate  within  ten  miles  of  it;  nor  did 
he  serve  notice  on  the  nester  where  the  gate  might 
be  found.  This  mattered  little  to  the  latter.  He  sim- 
ply cut  his  own  gate  when  he  came  to  the  fence.  This 
first  gap  so  cut  was  the  sign  of  war — a  war  in  which 
many  lives  were  lost  and  much  property  hazarded 
before  adjustment  was  found  for  the  deep  principles 
involved. 

The  big  landowner  went  on  with  his  fencing  op- 
erations, and  returned  along  the  line  some  morning 
to  find  the  fence  gapped  in  half  a  dozen  places.  Per- 
haps he  missed  certain  cattle  whose  range  habits  should 
have  made  them  easy  to  find  at  a  certain  point.  Per- 
haps he  traced  certain  suspicious  hides  to  the  butcher 
shops  in  the  towns.  Of  these  things  he  made  no  com- 
plaint. But  he  stationed  some  cowpuncher,  who  was 
a  good  sure  shot  with  the  Winchester,  at  some  gully 
near  the  trail  over  which  the  nester  was  apt  to  come 
some  morning.  The  cowpuncher  cheerfully  shot  the 
nester,  and  the  cousin  of  the  nester  killed  the  cow- 
puncher, and  that  created  a  feeling  of  injury  at  the 
ranch  for  which  the  cowpuncher  was  working.  Per- 
haps there  was  a  little  riding  party  the  next  day.  Per- 
haps there  were  several  nesters  hiding  out  for  a  time. 
But  the  gaps  continued  to  appear  in  the  lines  of  the 
great  wire  fences,  rendering  them  useless.  Parties  of 
cowboys  lay  out  at  night  regularly  watching  the  fence 
at  suspected  points,  and  parties  of  nesters  lay  out  for 
the  cowboys.  Many  on  both  sides  were  killed.  One 
large  landholder  of  foreign  nationality  put  up  twenty 
miles  of  fence  in  one  line.  He  was  disliked  by  his 
own  cowboys  as  well  as  by  the  nesters,  and  all  of 


268  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

them  joined  hands  to  destroy  the  fence.  In  the  night 
time  the  men  cut  the  fence  in  hundreds  of  places,  and 
hitching  their  ropes  to  the  long  strands  of  wire 
dragged  them  bodily  out  upon  the  prairie.  By  morn- 
ing the  entire  fence  had  disappeared. 

The  country  had  been  free  too  long  for  a  man  to  be 
hindered  in  his  riding.  What  should  one  do  who 
met  this  impassable  wire  when  he  was  on  his  way 
across  the  wild  country,  riding  by  the  shortest  line, 
as  had  been  his  wont  in  the  past?  It  was  a  dangerous 
thing,  this  fence  upon  the  waterless  country,  which 
shut  one  off  from  the  necessaries  of  life.  There  had 
never  been  bred  in  that  land  any  respect  for  a  law 
which  cut  a  man  off  from  the  watering  places,  and  from 
the  right  to  travel  across  the  open  range.  By  no  means 
was  the  "  foreign  "  nester  alone  in  his  feeling  against 
the  fences.  Natives  joined  him,  and  all  men  whose 
Original  liberties  were  transgressed.  The  cause  of  the 
nester  grew  in  strength  and  became  indeed  a  popular 
one. 

It  angered  well-nigh  to  a  point  of  frenzy  many 
foreign  and  alien  capitalists  to  learn  that  they  had 
come  indeed  upon  a  land  of  the  free;  for  the  State  of 
Texas  had  no  trespass  law.  The  remedy  was  to  col- 
lect civil  damages  against  the  man  who  cut  one's  fence, 
and  failing  that,  to  kill  him;  the  latter,  a  game  at 
which  he  could  also  play,  and  often  did.  All  sober- 
minded  men  began  to  see  that  the  fencing  of  the 
country  was  obnoxious  to  the  institutions  which  had 
long  prevailed,  and  that  there  had  been  traversed  the 
sense  of  justice  in  the  hearts  of  a  great  body  of  the 
population.  The  question  was  one  which  demanded 
settlement,  and  at  length  the  aid  of  the  courts  was  in- 
voked. In  dozens  and  hundreds  the  nesters  were  ar- 
rested and  brought  in  for  trial.  At  one  session  of  the 


THE  NESTER.  269 

court  in  a  certain  little  Texas  village,  in  the  early 
'SO's,  nearly  two  hundred  fence  cutters  were  indicted 
by  the  grand  jury.  When  their  time  came  up  for  trial 
they  were  on  hand — very  much  so.  The  town  thronged 
with  them.  Each  man  of  them  had  a  Winchester  and 
a  revolver,  and  they  held  together  in  a  great  body  of 
silent,  watchful,  determined  men.  The  jailer  of  the 
town  had  a  pair  of  valued  hounds  which  he  at  occasion 
used  in  tracking  escaped  prisoners.  Early  in  the  day 
both  of  these  hounds  were  found  dead,  poisoned  by 
meat  thrown  over  the  jail  wall  to  them.  The  jailer 
swore  he  would  kill  the  man  who  poisoned  the  dogs. 
The  sheriff,  who  was  himself  later  killed,  the  United 
States  marshal  who  had  made  most  of  the  arrests,  and 
who  met  death  in  the  course  of  his  duties  at  another 
time,  together  with  the  deputy  sheriff,  who  was  also 
killed  later  on,  all  at  this  time  urged  the  jailer  to  keep 
quiet.  The  tension  of  the  community  was  very  great. 
All  knew  that  if  the  limits  of  the  law  were  enforced, 
the  officers  of  the  law  would  have  to  fight  the  whole 
body  of  their  "  prisoners."  Really  the  court  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  prisoners,  and  had  common  sense  enough 
to  see  it.  One  or  two  light  fines  were  imposed,  in  cases 
where  it  was  obviously  just  or  feasible,  and  the  other 
cases  were  dismissed  or  "  continued." 

Thus  a  state  of  wholesale  war  was  temporarily 
averted  in  one  section  of  the  country.  In  other  sections 
the  war  went  on  also,  with  varying  results.  The  chief 
battles  were  fought  upon  the  range,  and  many  and 
bitter  were  the  feuds  in  the  outlying  portions  of  the 
cow  country.  The  name  of  the  nester  spread  to  other 
parts  of  the  Southwest,  and  he  was  regarded  with 
hatred  or  open  contempt  over  the  cattle  country  of 
New  Mexico,  where  he  too  often  turned  up  in  legal 
possession  of  some  choice  bit  of  water  front,  which  he 


270  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

misused,  according  to  the  cowman,  by  applying  it  to 
the  purposes  of  irrigation.  But  everywhere  the  nester 
stood  on  his  rights,  legal  and  personal.  He  was  as  good 
a  shot  as  any,  and  he  had-lived  on  the  "  front  "  as  long  as 
any,  and  he  had  all  the  wild  frontier  reliance  upon 
himself  and  the  swift  hand  of  resentment  for  any  in- 
jury. In  the  West  it  was  never  well  to  allow  any 
man  to  "  run  over  you/7  and  he  who  suffered  this 
forever  lost  caste.  The  nester  was  born  to  this  creed 
as  much  as  the  cowman,  and  he  lived  up  to  it  as  sternly. 
Slowly  the  little  wars  went  on,  the  underlying  ques- 
tions meantime  receiving  gradual  adjustment  in  the 
courts.  Naturally,  a  sort  of  compromise  was  the  out- 
come, giving  to  each  industry,  so  desirable  of  itself, 
a  proper  showing,  and  holding  both  to  a  stricter  ob- 
servance of  the  laws.  To-day  the  original  usages  and 
necessities  of  the  wilder  past  may  be  seen  in  some  of 
the  laws  of  the  cow  country.  The  great  ranges  of 
Texas  are  fenced,  the  land  of  the  original  source  of  the 
American  cattle  industry  being  the  first  to  give  up 
the  "  free  grass  "  of  the  range.  The  great  "  pastures," 
as  they  are  called,  have  fences  running  twenty,  thirty, 
forty  miles  in  unbroken  line  at  times.  But  if  one 
need  to  cross  one  of  the  great  tracts  of  land,  he  shall 
have  "  wood  and  water  right  "  to  camp  by  the  roadside 
wherever  he  may  be.  If  the  landholder  fence  in 
more  than  ten  thousand  acres  of  property  in  one 
body,  one  may  treat  it  as  if  it  were  his  to  travel  over 
and  hunt  over  as  he  likes.  The  nester  is  almost 
forgotten  now  by  his  original  name.  The  far  in  or 
is  tolerated  by  the  cowman,  and  the  cowman  by  the 
farmer.  They  adjust  their  necessities  eacli  with 
the  other,  and  the  first  phases  of  the  question  are  de- 
cided. 

But  the  homesteader,  the  man  with  the  family, 


THE  NESTER.  271 

the  man  with  the  small  holding  of  land,,  is  established 
in  the  cattle  country  of  America,,  and  will  hold  his  own 
by  a  law  greater  than  State  law  and  greater  than  any 
national  law;  by  the  inexorable  law  of  the  growth  and 
spread  of  the  population  of  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    BUSTLER. 

As  in  the  Southern  cattle  country  the  nester  was 
an  enemy  to  the  interests  of  the  cattle  trade,  so  on  the 
northern  range  was  the  man  who  represented  his  ex- 
aggerated counterpart,  that  somewhat  famous  West- 
ern character  known  as  the  rustler.  There  has  never 
been  upon  the  range  a  character  more  fully  discussed 
or  less  fully  understood.  Many  persons  are  familiar 
with  the  curious  Western  verb  "  to  rustle/'  and  know 
what  is  meant  when  one  is  asked  to  "  rustle  a  little 
wood  "  for  the  camp  in  the  mountains,  or  when  it  is 
announced  that  the  horses  should  be  turned  out  to 
"rustle  a  little  grass,"  etc.;  but  they  would  be  unable, 
as  indeed  perhaps  many  resident  cattle  men  might  be 
unable,  to  give  the  original  derivation  of  the  term 
"  rustler." 

Any  one  acquainted  with  the  cattle  country  of 
the  North  would  soon  come  to  hear  much  of  the 
rustler,  and  that  in  stories  of  the  most  confusing 
character.  Thus  he  might  hear  of  the  murder  of 
some  dweller  in  an  outlying  camp,  and  be  informed 
that  the  crime  was  attributed  to  "  rustlers."  A  stage- 
coach might  be  held  up,  or  a  mountain  treasure  train 
robbed,  and  the  act  would  be  laid  at  the  door  of  this 
same  mysterious  being,  the  rustler.  He  might  hear 
that  a  number  of  men  had  boon  the  victims  of  a  lynching 

272 


THE  RUSTLER.  273 

bee,  and  be  advised  that  the  men  hung  were  rustlers. 
Thus  in  time  he  might  come  to  believe  that  any  and  all 
bad  characters  of  the  West  were  to  be  called  rustlers.  In 
this  he  would  be  inaccurate  and  unjust.  The  real  rustler 
was  an  operator  in  a  more  restricted  field,  and  al- 
though it  would  be  impossible  to  induce  a  cattle  man 
to  believe  there  was  ever  any  such  thing  as  a  good 
rustler,  it  is  at  least  true  that  there  were  sometimes 
two  sides  to  the  rustler's  case,  as  there  were  two  sides 
in  that  of  the  nester.  In  the  later  or  acquired  sense 
of  the  term,  all  rustlers  were  criminals.  In  the  original 
sense  of  the  word,  no  rustler  was  a  criminal.  He  was 
simply  a  hard-working  man,  paid  a  little  gratuity  for 
a  little  extra  exertion  on  his  part.  He  got  his  name 
in  the  early  Maverick  days,  before  the  present  strict 
laws  governing  the  handling  of  that  inviting  range 
product.  He  was  then  a  cowboy  pure  and  simple,  and 
sometimes  his  employer  gave  'him  two,  three,  or  five 
dollars  for  each  Maverick  he  found  and  branded  to  the 
home  brand.  Then  the  cattle  associations  for  a  time 
paid  any  cowboy  five  dollars  a  head  for  any  Maverick 
he  found  for  the  association.  It  behooved, the  cow- 
boys of  those  days  to  ".get  out  and  rustle  "  for  calves, 
the  word  being  something  of  a  synonym  for  the  city 
slang  word  "  hustle,"  and  with  no  evil  meaning  at- 
tached to  it.  The  term  passed  through  pome  years  of 
evolution  before  it  gained  its  proper  modern  signifi- 
cance, or  the  improper  and  inaccurate  use  which  is 
sometimes  given  it. 

Under  the  system  of  Maverick  gratuities  the  cow- 
boy prospered  on  the  northern  range.  Those  were 
his  palmy  days.  Any  cowpuncher  of  active  habits 
and  a  saving  disposition  could  easily  lay  up  consider- 
able sums  of  money  each  year.  As  he  was  bred  upon 
the  range  and  understood  nothing  but  the  -cow  busi- 


274  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ness,  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for 
him  to  buy  a  few  cows  and  start  in  business  for  him- 
self, sometimes  while  still  under  pay  of  his  former 
employer,  and  sometimes  quite  "  on  his  own  hook." 
He  gradually  began  his  herd,  and  had  his  brand 
registered  as  those  of  the  cowmen  of  the  district.  Thus 
he  ceased  to  be  cowboy  and  became  cowman;  or  rather 
he  remained  as  he  really  always  was,  both  cowboy  and 
cowman,  both  herder  and  owner.  In  this  way  many 
young  men  who  went  on  the  range  "  broke  "  began 
in  a  short  time  to  "  get  ahead  "  very  rapidly.  There 
were  few  better  avenues  to  quick  fortunes  than  those 
offered  by  the  cattle  business  at  this  stage  of  its  growth. 
The  logical  sequel  followed  very  rapidly.  From  all 
parts  of  the  country  all  sorts  of  men  pressed  into  the 
business.  There  appeared  upon  the  range  a  great  many 
men  of  the  sort  known  to  the  old-time  cowmen  as 
"bootblack  cowpunchers,"  men  who  came  from  the 
Eastern  country  to  go  into  the  cattle  business  for 
what  money  there  was  in  it,  and  who  were  not  slow 
to  see  where  the  quick  ways  of  making  money  might 
be  made  still  a  little  quicker.  There  also  came  into 
the  business  a  great  many  Eastern  men  of  wealth  and 
standing,  who  were  wise  enough  to  see  that  the  cattle 
business  offered  profits  fairly  Midaslike  compared 
to  the  possibilities  of  capital  in  the  older  country.  The 
West  was  now  settling  up  rapidly  along  all  the  rail- 
roads with  a  good  class  of  citizens,  men  of  culture 
and  refinement  among  them,  all  pressing  into  the 
new  West  to  "  grow  up  with  the  country,"  and  to  lake 
advantage  of  the  great  opportunities  of  that  promised 
land. 

Under  this  influx  of  mixedpopulation  and  this  access 
of  new  business  methods  there  appeared  a  factor  never 
before  known  on  the  great  cattle  ranges — that  of  com- 


THE  RUSTLER.  2Y5 

petition.  Heretofore  there  had  always  been  enough  for 
all.  Now  there  came  the  stress  of  the  multitude,  and 
with  it  the  dog  in  the  manger  which  belongs  with  the 
ways  of  modern  business  life.  By  this  time  there  began 
to  be  hundreds  of  new  brands  upon  the  range,  and  the 
wealthy  cattle  men  saw  some  of  their  cowboys  building 
up  herds  in  competition  with  their  own.  It  always 
grieves  the  heart  of  capital  to  behold  a  poorer  man 
begin  to  make  too  much  money.  In  time  there  was 
inaugurated  upon  the  cow  range  the  good  old  game 
of  the  settlements,  of  dog-eat-dog,  and  the  big  dog 
began  to  eat  the  little  one.  The  big  men  met  and  com- 
bined against  the  little  ones.  They  agreed  that  no 
more  Maverick  commissions  should  be  paid,  and  that 
the  cowpuncher  need  "  rustle "  no  more  calves  for 
himself,  but  should  rustle  them  for  his  employer  only. 
Moreover,  it  was  agreed  that  no  cowboy  should  be 
allowed  to  own  a  brand  of  his  own.  This  all  happened 
just  at  the  period  of  the  passing  away  of  the  good  old 
times  of  the  West.  It  was  at  the  beginning  of  the 
West  of  to-day — the  humdrum,  commonplace,  exact, 
businesslike,  dog-eat-dog  West — which  is  precisely 
like  any  other  part  of  the  country  now,  with  as  much 
competition  as  any,  and  with  as  few  special  oppor- 
tunities in  business. 

This  blow  at  the  welfare  of  the  cowboy  had  a 
curious  effect.  It  was  intended  to  stop  "rustling," 
but  it  increased  it  a  thousandfold.  It  was  intended 
to  protect  the  herds  of  the  big  ranchers,  but  it  came 
near  to  ruining  them.  It  was  intended  to  stop  an 
honest  business  system,  and  it  resulted  in  establishing 
a  dishonest  one.  It  arrayed  the  written  law  against 
the  unwritten  law  which  had  in  all  the  past  been  the 
governing  principle  of  the  free  West.  It  threw  down 
the  gauntlet  for  that  inevitable  war  which  must  be 


276  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

waged  between  society  and  the  individual;  a  conflict 
which  can  have  but  one  end.  In  this  case  that  end 
meant  the  destruction  of  all  that  free  and  wild  char- 
acter which  had  for  a  glorious  generation  been  the  dis- 
tinguishing trait  of  a  great  and  heroic  country.  Let 
us  admit  that  the  rustler — who  now  began  to  brand 
calves  where  he  found  them,  Maverick  or  no  Maverick 
— was  a  sinner  against  the  written  law,  that  he  was  a 
criminal,  that  he  was  the  burglar,  the  bounds-breaker 
of  the  range;  but  let  us  not  forget  that  he  acted  in 
many  ways  under  the  stern  upholding  of  what  seemed 
to  him  the  justice  of  the  old  West.  At  any  rate,  we 
shall  not  be  asked  to  forget  him  as  the  man  who 
watched  out  the  nickering  breath  of  that  dying  West 
which  not  all  our  lamentations  can  now  ever  again 
bring  back  to  life. 

The  rustler  was  a  cowpuncher,  and  one  of  the 
best.  He  understood  the  wild  trade  of  the  range  to 
its  last  detail.  Among  cowpunchers  there  were  men 
naturally  dishonest,  and  these  turned  to  illegal  rustling 
as  matter  of  course.  They  were  joined  by  the  loose 
men  of  the  upper  country,  who  "  were  not  there  for 
their  health,"  and  who  found  the  possibilities  of  the 
cattle  system  very  gratifying.  These  took  in  with 
them,  sometimes  almost  perforce  and  against  their 
will,  often  at  least  against  their  convictions,  some  cow- 
punchers  who  were  naturally  as  honest  and  loyal 
men  as  ever  lived.  To  understand  their  actions  one 
must  endeavour  to  comprehend  clearly  what  was  really 
the  moral  code  of  that  time  and  that  country.  This 
code  was  utterly  different  from  that  of  the  old  com- 
munities. Under  it  the  man  who  branded  a  few  calves 
for  himself  as  an  act  of  "getting  even"  with  the  unjust 
rules  of  the  large  cow  outfits  and  the  big  Eastern 
syndicates  was  not  lowered  in  the  least  in  the  esteem 


THE  BUSTLER.  277 

of  his  fellow-men,  but,  to  the  contrary,  was  regarded 
as  a  man  of  spirit,  and  therefore  entitled  to  the  rough 
Western  respect  which  had  no  eye  for  him  who  sub- 
mitted to  be  "imposed  upon."  In  some  portions  of 
the  upper  country,  notably  in  a  few  counties  of  Wyo- 
ming, the  rustlers,  or  men  who  took  beef  cattle  or  calves 
not  their  own,  far  outnumbered  the  men  opposed  to 
them.  They  were  called  thieves  and  cutthroats  and 
outlaws,  and  so  perhaps  they  were  from  one  stand- 
point. From  their  own  standpoint  they  were  not, 
and  there  were  so  many  of  them  that  they  really  made 
the  "  sovereign  people,"  which  is  supposed  to  be  the 
ultimate  court  of  appeal  in  this  country.  They  elected 
all  the  officers  and  chose  the  judges  in  some  counties, 
and  they — the  people — ran  things  to  suit  themselves. 
It  was  of  no  use  for  a  syndicate  man  to  try  to  get  in 
one  of  those  courts  what  he  called  justice,  because  he 
was  sure  to  get  what  the  people  called  justice,  and 
the  two  were  very  different  things. 

To  this  organized  rallying  of  the  "  little  fellows," 
as  the  small  cattle  owners  were  called,  there  came  all 
sorts  of  hard  and  dissolute  characters  out  of  the  chaotic 
population  of  the  West.  The  wild  frontier  life  had 
attracted  men  of  bold  nature,  who  had  taken  on  all 
the  restless  and  unsettled  habits  of  the  country  and 
were  irked  by  restraint  or  law  of  any  kind.  Out  of 
such  population  came  many  of  the  guides  and  scouts, 
who  actually  were  such,  as  well  as  a  deplorable  number 
of  a  class  contemptuously  called  "  long-hair  men " 
by  the  genuine  Westerner.  The  man  who  lived  on  the 
"  front "  had  to  make  his  living  as  best  he  could.  In 
the  time  of  the  buffalo  a  large  class  of  men  went  regu- 
larly into  the  miserable  occupation  of  "  skin  hunting," 
and  it  is  due  to  their  efforts  that  the  innumerable  hosts 
of  the  American  bison  were  destroyed  from  the  face 
19 


278  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  the  earth.  At  the  close  of  the  rapid  season  of 
butchery  which  was  thus  set  on  foot,  there  were 
thrown  upon  the  settlements  and  outlying  country 
of  the  cattle  range  a  large  number  of  these  ex-skin 
hunters,  men  of  hardy  nature  and  of  exact  knowledge 
of  the  wildest  parts  of  the  country.  These  men  scat- 
tered over  the  country  and  fell  into  such  occupations 
as  they  could  find.  Some  of  them  went  to  punching 
cows,  and  some  went  to  the  Legislature.  Some  lived 
in  out  of  the  way  corners  of  the  land,  dwelling  in  the 
dugout  or  cabin  which  was  their  old-time  home,  and 
making  a  living  no  one  just  knew  how.  There  was 
a  little  wild  game  left  in  the  country,  but  not  in  the  old 
abundance.  After  awhile  there  swept  over  the  coun- 
try, all  around  the  dugout  of  the  hunter,  the  great 
herds  of  cattle  which  inundated  the  northern  range. 
Was  it  likely  that  this  old  hunting  man  would  go 
without  beef? 

Thus  it  was  that  the  cult  of  the  rustler  grew.  The 
ranks  were  filled  by  cowpunchers  wholly  bad  and  only 
partly  bad,  by  old-time  cowpunchers  and  new-lime 
ones,  by  ex-skin  hunters  and  drifters  of  the  range; 
in  short,  by  all  sorts  of  men  who  saw  in  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  cow  trade  a  chance  to  make  a  living 
in  a  way  which  to  them  seemed  either  excusable,  ex- 
pedient, or  easily  capable  of  concealment.  The  quali- 
fications for  the  new  calling,  no  matter  what  or  who 
the  man  who  filled  them,  were  simply  the  best  ones 
demanded  by  the  calling  of  the  cowpuncher.  The 
rustler  must  without  fail  be  a  rider,  a  roper,  a  sure 
shot,  and  fully  posted  in  all  the  intricacies  of  marks 
and  brands.  He  must,  moreover,  be  a  man  of  "  nerve." 
In  viewing  him  we  view  the  criminal  of  the  range, 
but  an  open  and  unaffected  criminal,  and  we  are  less 
than  broad  if  we  fail  to  see  the  extenuating  circum- 


THE  RUSTLER.  279 

stances  for  his  crime  which  existed  in  the  conditions 
which  then  obtained.  Of  course,  if  we  can  not  claim 
acquaintance  with  those  conditions,  and  know  only 
those  of  the  old  civilizations,  we  must  call  him  a  rene- 
gade, a  thief,  and  often  a  murderer.  Under  those 
names  no  one  can  be  admired. 

The  rustlers  of  the  upper  country  rapidly  joined 
their  forces  and  arrived  at  an  understanding  with  one 
another.  The  true  story  of  their  operations  has  never 
been  written,  and  would  make  stirring  reading,  as 
indeed  would  a  description  of  many  of  the  scenes  and 
incidents  of  the  cowboy's  life.  They  had  in  a  way  a 
creed  and  a  dialect  of  their  own.  A  genuine  rustler 
was  called  a  "  waddy,"  a  name  difficult  to  trace  to 
its  origin.  He  might  also,  when  spoken  of  in  terms 
of  admiration,  be  called  a  "  pure,"  meaning  that  he 
was  a  thoroughbred,  a  reliable  man,  with  "  sand " 
and  ability  in  his  chosen  profession.  He  was  sure  to 
be  a  good  plainsman,  and  probably  a  "  straight-up  " 
rider — i.  e.,  one  who  could  ride  any  bucking  horse 
without  a  "  bucking  strap "  to  hang  on  to.  The 
rustler,  and  indeed  pretty  much  everybody  in  his 
country,  lived  on  "  slow  elk,"  which  is  to  say  that  they 
ate  yearling  beef  belonging  to  some  one  else,  probably 
some  big  cow  outfit.  It  was  held  strictly  a  point  of 
honor  among  these  men  never  to  touch  an  animal  be- 
longing to  a  poor  man  or  a  small  owner.  The  big 
non-resident  cattle  companies  were  the  chief  suffer- 
ers through  losses  of  their  "  slow  elk."  Sometimes 
the  spring  freshets  would  carry  away  from  the  little 
willow-covered  creek  valleys  the  skeletons  or  hide- 
less  carcasses  of  many  "  slow  elk."  Resident  managers 
for  Eastern  companies  were  obliged  to  report  a  lessen- 
ing yearly  increase  among  their  herds,  which  after  a 
while  became  almost  a  decrease.  The  profit  was  nearly 


280  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

taken  out  of  non-resident  cattle  ranching  by  the  opera- 
tions of  the  rustlers  in  certain  unfortunate  parts  of 
the  range.  Sometimes  the  foreman  of  a  ranch  was 
in  open  or  concealed  sympathy  with  the  rustlers,  and 
very  often  some  of  the  cowpunchers  were  friendly  to 
them.  Perhaps  some  of  the  cowboys  were  a  "  little  on 
the  rustle "  themselves  in  a  quiet  way.  Sometimes 
such  a  cowboy  would  rope  and  tie  out  at  some  conven- 
ient place  during  the  day  a  number  of  calves,  and 
would  then  slip  out  at  night  and  brand  them  with  his 
own  iron  or  that  of  some  confederate. 

Local  sympathy  was  all  with  the  rustlers  and 
against  the  Eastern  syndicate  men,  and  it  was  un- 
popular to  be  too  outspoken  in  condemnation  of 
the  rustling  operations.  The  small  homesteader  or 
squatter  who  had  made  an  attempt  at  a  farm  on 
some  water  way  out  in  the  dry  and  inhospitable 
country  might  not  be  much  of  a  cowman,  and  might 
not  wish  to  mix  up  in  any  of  these  crooked  operations 
of  the  pseudo-cowman;  but  if  a  man  came  into  his 
house  some  morning  and  made  him  a  present  of  a 
quarter  of  beef,  or  sold  it  to  him  for  half  a  dollar,  who 
was  to  be  the  wiser?  It  was  difficult,  and  not  always 
safe,  for  the  small  settler  to  refuse.  If  he  accepted, 
and  did  so  again  a  few  times,  he  became  tacitly  recog- 
nised as  bound  to  secrecy,  and  practically  a  friend 
of  the  rustlers.  After  a  time  another  man  might 
come  along  and  ask  permission  to  leave  a  few  calves 
in  his  pasture  for  a  few  weeks,  and  as  he  did  not  know 
where  the  calves  came  from,  he  was  perhaps  not  averse 
to  accepting  the  pay  for  this,  unconscious  of  the  fact 
that  the  calves  were  only  being  made  into  artificial 
Mavericks  by  being  weaned  away  from  their  mothers, 
so  that  no  discrepancy  of  brands  might  be  noticeable 
between  the  mother  and  her  calf.  Thus  also  some- 


THE  RUSTLER.  281 

times  the  corral  of  a  sympathizer  might  be  used  at 
night  to  hold  a  few  calves  which  were  being  run  out 
of  the  country,  or  a  bunch  of  horses  which  were  going 
the  same  way.  The  very  corral  of  the  ranch  from 
which  the  stock  was  taken  might  serve  this  same  pur- 
pose. It  was  covertly  understood  by  the  majority  of 
the  population  resident  upon  the  cattle  range  of  this 
section  of  the  country  that  it  was  not  well  to  watch 
things  too  closely.  In  this  sentiment  many  cowboys 
joined  who  did  not  openly  join  the  rustlers.  The 
honest  cowboys  who  remained  steadfast  in  their  en- 
deavour to  protect  the  interests  of  their  employers 
were  spoken  of  with  contempt,  and  were  referred  to 
as  being  "  peoned  out "  to  their  employers,  and  were 
accused  of  "  living  on  bacon  rinds,  like  so  many  jack- 
asses." Sometimes  they  were  called  "  pliers  men,"  or 
"  bucket  men  "  by  ex-cowboys  who  would  have  scorned 
to  carry  a  "bucket  of  sheep  dip,"  or  to  bother  too 
much  about  mending  a  gap  in  a  wire  fence.  Thus 
we  see  an  entire  perversion  of  the  original  cowpuncher 
love  of  justice,  and  his  wish  to  give  each  man  his  own 
property.  Instead  of  being  ready  to  hang  a  cow  thief 
or  shoot  a  horse  thief,  we  find  our  cowboys  over  a 
great  strip  of  country  sympathizing  or  conniving  with 
such  men.  Such  a  pronounced  change  of  principles 
surely  requires  a  pronounced  reason.  In  point  of  fact, 
this  was  not  a  change  of  principles,  but  a  change  of 
conditions.  The  cowboy  remained  true  to  the  West, 
but  he  felt  no  loyalty  for  the  East.  He  was  true  to 
his  old  code,  but  he  maintained  that  the  application 
of  that  code  had  changed  in  its  conditions.  Slowly 
he  was  to  learn  the  new  codes,  and  to  become  the  cow- 
boy of  to-day. 

If  anything  can  be  said  in  extenuation  of  the  rus- 
tler, it  is  of  that  rustler  who  in  certain  parts  of  the 


282  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

range  waged  his  fight  against  the  big  barons  who,  as 
he  claimed,  were  oppressing  the  cowpunchers  and  de- 
priving them  of  what  had  been  a  regular  source  of 
income.  This  was  about  the  time  of  the  forming  of 
the  Wyoming  stock  commission,  and  the  appointment 
of  the  brand  inspectors  at  the  cattle  markets,  when 
the  cattle  men  organized  into  a  general  State  associa- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  protecting  their  interests 
against  the  lawless  element.  Long  before  that  time 
this  same  question  of  cattle  thieving  had  come  up  on 
the  range,  and  under  more  virulent  and  absolutely 
inexcusable  form.  The  range  in  Montana  had  been 
infested  with  cattle  and  horse  thieves,  who  robbed  in- 
discriminately all  who  owned  property  that  came  in 
their  way,  without  show  or  colour  of  attempt  at  justi- 
fication. These  thieves  lived  in  the  out-country,  each 
in  his  own  cabin,  and  with  only  a  very  loose  sort  of 
organization,  though  if  a  visit  of  suspicion  was  made 
to  the  dugout  of  such  a  man,  to  see  what  was  going 
on  about  his  place,  he  was  apt  to  be  surly  about  it; 
and  a  second  such  visit  might  find  him  entertaining 
a  few  friends  of  his  own,  each  a  hard-looking  man  with 
a  good  gun  and  a  clever  way  of  using  it.  Long  before 
the  courts  had  become  strong  enough  to  be  of  use 
in  meeting  this  outlawry,  the  cattle  men  of  Montana 
banded  together  to  crush  it  out  by  means  of  vigilante 
work.  The  description  and  abode  of  nearly  every  one 
of  the  cattle  thieves  were  known,  and  a  regular  cam- 
paign of  reform  was  begun,  after  the  practical  and 
thorough  methods  of  that  day.  Some  of  the  rustlers 
were  asked  to  leave  the  country,  and  did  so;  and  some 
who  were  thus  asked  to  leave  and  did  not  comply,  were 
shot  or  hung  when  next  found.  In  this  campaign  the 
vigilantes  killed  between  sixty  and  eighty  of  the 
rustlers.  One  railroad  bridge  one  morning  had  thir- 


THE  RUSTLER.  283 

teen  corpses  swinging  to  it.  In  the  ten  years  from 
1876  to  1886  the  vigilantes  of  the  range  executed  as 
many  men  in  Montana,  Dakota,  and  Nebraska  as  have 
been  legally  executed  by  the  law  in  any  dozen  States 
in  all  the  time  since  then.  It  was  the  only  way  which, 
in  that  part  of  the  country  and  at  that  time,  was  prac- 
tical. Capital  punishment  was  a  necessity,  but  jails 
were  an  impossibility,  and  the  population  had  not 
yet  had  time  to  organize  fully  into  the  ways  of  the 
older  communities.  We  may  call  these  lynchings 
wrong  also,  and  certainly  they  were  as  much  against 
the  law  as  stealing  cattle  was  against  the  law;  but 
it  was  here  also  a  question  of  the  unwritten  as  against 
the  written  law.  It  is  folly  to  apply  the  standards 
of  other  times  and  places  to  the  wild  'surroundings 
of  that  rude  early  population.  Far  better  might  we 
accord  to  them  the  right,  which  the  American  people 
have  ever  been  wont  to  claim  and  take,  of  governing 
themselves  according  to  their  sense  of  justice  under 
the  circumstances  then  and  there  prevailing.  The 
men  of  these  times  knew  what  we  should  always,  in 
our  efforts  to  be  just,  remember  also,  that  circum- 
stances alter  cases.  Thus  these  opposing  interests, 
each  lawless  and  each  strong,  fought  out  their  battles 
for  themselves,  and  so  arrived  at  eventual  justice. 

The  rustler  in  those  days  was  never  to  be  accused 
of  "  putting  up  a  slow  fight,"  or  not  "  dying  game." 
He  was  very  likely  to  be  an  individual  of  the  sort 
known  as  a  "  bad  man  with  a  gun."  When  he  came 
to  town  he  usually  wore  two  guns,  and  "  wore  'em 
low,"  as  the  saying  went.  That  is  to  say,  he  carried 
two  revolvers,  each  swinging  low  down  and  pretty 
well  forward  on  his  thighs,  not  on  the  hip  in  the  less 
efficient  fashion.  The  scabbards,  or  holsters,  of  his 
revolvers  were  attached  at  their  bottoms  to  the  man's 


284  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

boot  tops  or  to  his  trousers  by  buckskin  thongs,  so 
that  when  a  sudden  jerk  was  made  for  the  "  gun  "  it 
came  out  smoothly  and  did  not  pull  the  holster  with 
;it,  the  latter  being  held  down.  Nearly  all  the  gun 
fighters  of  the  time  had  their  pistol  holsters  thus  tied 
down  to  their  clothing,  even  when  the  gun  was  worn 
concealed  by  the  coat,  well  around  on  the  hip.  The 
usefulness  of  this  little  device  can  be  appreciated  by 
any  one  who  has  practised  the  handling  of  the  large  re- 
volver both  with  and  without  it,  and  who  remembers 
the  extreme  value  which  each  little  shining  moment 
had  in  one  of  the  rapid  encounters  of  those  days. 
Sometimes  the  rustler  showed  fight  when  he  was  cor- 
nered by  the  vigilantes,  but  he  was  usually  taken  at 
such  disadvantage  that  he  had  little  chance.  He  rare- 
ly asked  any  mercy,  for  he  was  a  practical  sort  of  man, 
and  knew  that  it  was  not  worth  while. 

"  Excuse  me,  gentlemen,"  said  one  of  them,  as  he 
was  led  to  the  fatal  tree,  "  but  I'd  just  like  to  take  a 
chaw  o'  tobacco  fer  a  few  minutes  before  I  leave." 
His  wish  was  granted  gravely  and  politely.  "  So  long," 
said  another,  as  he  sprang  boldly  out  from  the  end 
of  the  wagon  which  made  the  death  trap  for  his  gal- 
lows. A  few  of  these  men  broke  down  under  the 
memory  of  other  days  and  scenes,  but  none  of  these 
asked  any  aid  or  pity.  Some  died  cursing,  not  many 
died  praying.  They  were  hard,  rough  souls,  these 
fellows,  but  among  them  there  were  some  men  whose 
splendid  courage  might  almost  have  earned  them  a 
right  to  longer  life. 

The  riijUantes  of  the  plains  rarely  made  any  mis- 
takes in  their  hurried  trials  and  executions,  and  though 
they  sometimes  hung  the  wrong  man  it  made  little 
difference,  because  it  was  a  part  of  the  optimistic 
creed  of  the  time  that  even  if  such  a  man  was  hung 


THE  RUSTLER.  285 

under  a  mistake,  he  probably  ought  to  have  been  hung 
anyhow;  so  it  was  all  right.  It  is  only  in  the  very 
rarest  of  cases  that  a  man  who  has  ever  engaged  in  a 
lynching  will  speak  of  it  to  any  one,  even  to  a  man 
who  has  been  of  the  same  party  with  him.  The  act 
is  buried  with  its  victim.  It  would  be  in  bad  taste 
to  quote  any  such  confession  even  if  it  had  been  made, 
but  the  case  was  different,  at  least  in  the  popular 
mind  of  to-day,  when  a  man  had  simply  acted  as  one 
of  a  legal  posse  sent  out  under  formal  process  of  the 
law  to  take  a  man,  dead  or  alive.  In  either  case  the 
method  of  making  the  arrest  was  much  the  same.  The 
practical  Western  mind  early  discovered  that  a  man 
must  sleep,  and  that  in  time  he  must  wake  up  again; 
and  these  facts  offered  the  suggestion  for  the  manner 
of  either  "  getting  "  one's  fellow-citizen  as  a  private 
matter,  or  "  taking  "  him  as  a  public  matter.  Such 
an  arrest  was  once  described  by  a  cowpuncher,  who 
had  served  upon  a  sheriff's  posse  for  the  capture  of  a 
cattle  thief. 

"  Eeddy  Patterson,  the  sherf,"  said  the  cowpuncher, 
"  he  come  to  me  an'  he  said  he  wanted  me  to  go  along 
an'  help  take  a  feller. 

"'What  feller?'  says  L 

"  '  Hank  Ferris,'  says  he. 

"  '  What  fer,'  says  I. 

" (  Eustlin'  cows  on  the  Three  X/  says  he. 

" i  Oh,'  says  I.  So  I  goes  an'  gets  my  Winchester, 
an'  we  all  rides  on  over  to  Hank's  place,  about  twenty 
miles.  Feller  name  of  Parker  was  along.  Parker  he 
taken  up  a  hay  ranch  down  clos't  to  town.  Well,  we 
come  to  Hank's  house,  an'  tied  out  a  way  from  it  an' 
crep'  into  the  bushes  near  the  spring,  fer  we  'lowed 
if  Hank  was  home  he'd  come  out  perty  soon  to  git 
some  water.  We  laid  out  fer  a  hour  or  more,  an  didn't 


286  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

see  no  sign  o'  no-thin',  till  fin'ly  we  see  a  smoke  start  up 
in  the  chimbly,  so  we  know'd  some  one  was  in  there,  sure. 

"  Bimeby  Hank  he  comes  out  an'  walks  down  to- 
warts  the  spring  wher  we  was  a-lyin'.  I  could  a-got 
him  easy,  but  Eeddy  he  holds  me  back,  an'  when  Hank 
gets  down  clos't  to  us,  Eeddy  steps  out  an'  tells  him  to 
get  up  his  hands.  Hank  he  looks  at  him,  an'  don't 
put  up  his  hands  at  first,  an'  yet  so  far  as  we  could 
see  he  didn't  have  on  no  gun.  I  reckon  he  was  plenty 
mad.  Eeddy  he  calls  to  him  to  get  up  his  hands 
quick,  and  Hank  puts  'em  up  then,  though  all  the  time 
he  kep'  a-backin'  towarts  the  house.  We  all  stood 
out  and  was  goin'  up  to  him  then,  thinkin'  he  might 
get  some  edge  onto  us,  but  jest  as  we  got  a'most  up  to 
Hank,  blamed  ef  there  didn't  another  feller  run  out 
of  the  house  an'  start  to  go  'round  the  corner.  Parker 
he  blazes  away  at  this  feller  without  no  orders,  an' 
blame  ef  he  didn't  get  him,  too! 

"  '  What  in  hell  you  shootin'  at  ?  '  says  Eeddy,  who 
ain't  give  no  orders.  An'  says  Hank,  '  D — d  ef  you 
ain't  killed  that  feller!  What'd  you  do  it  fer? ' 

"  We  all  went  to  the  other  feller,  an'  he  wasn't 
dead,  only  shot  through  the  shoulder,  an'  he  was 
mighty  mad  about  it. 

"  '  My  frien','  says  Eeddy,  e  who  are  you  an'  what 
you  doin'  yer?  ' 

"  '  My  name's  Hanson,'  says  he.  '  Who  in  hell 
are  you  ?  ' 

"  '  My  name's  Patterson,'  says  Eeddy.  '  I'm  sherf 
o'  this  county.  What  made  you  run?' 

"  '  I  'lowed  it  wuzn't  safe,'  says  the  feller. 

"  '  It  ain't,'  says  Eeddy,  (  er  not  always.  Wher e'd 
you  come  from  ?  ' 

"  '  Cheyann,'  says  he.  '  I  never  was  in  yer  before 
in  my  life.  I  wuz  just  visitin'  Hank.' 


THE  EUSTLER.  287 

"  '  Is  that  so,  Hank?  '  says  Reddy. 

"'Sure/  says  Hank.  'That  feller  ain't  done 
no  rustlin'.  D — n  perty  thing,  you  comin'  an'  shootin' 
him!' 

"  Reddy  he  thinks  a  while,  and  he  says  to  the 
feller:  'Well,  pardner,  I  reckon  we  was  mistook 
about  you,  an'  I  ain't  got  no  warrant  fer  you  nohow. 
I'm  mighty  sorry  we  shot  you.' 

"'That's  so,'  says  the  feller.  'It  don't  look 
quite  right.' 

"Then  Reddy  says  to  Parker,  'Parker,  I 
reckon  you  better  go  on  up  to  town  ahead  of  us. — 
You  mustn't  mind  him,'  he  says  to  the  feller,  mean- 
in'  he  mustn't  mind  Parker.  '  He's  jest  a  leetle  nerv- 
ous, er  he  wouldn't  a-shot  you  at  all.  I  didn't  tell 
him  to,  and  I'm  mighty  sorry  he  done  it,  too.' 

"  That  feller  Reddy  Patterson,  he's  shore  a  plum 
white  man,"  said  the  cowpuncher  in  conclusion.  "  He 
don't  mean  wrong  to  no  man." 

The  lawless  life  of  the  rustler,  and  the  opportuni- 
ties it  offered  for  the  easy  and  rapid  accumulation  of 
property,  attracted  many  uneasy  and  loose-principled 
men  from  different  parts  of  the  country.  Some  of  the 
men  publicly  known  to  belong  to  the  rustlers  in  the 
Wyoming  factional  troubles  of  less  than  a  decade  ago 
were  men  who  had  respectable  ranch  properties.  They 
had  good  cottonwood  log-houses  built,  with  perma- 
nent improvements,  corrals,  etc.,  just  as  the  legitimate 
cowmen  had.  They  had  good  herds  begun,  princi- 
pally without  the  trouble  of  buying  any  cattle  at 
the  start.  One  of  them  was  thought  to  be  worth 
seventy  thousand  dollars,  and  had  a  herd  of  several 
hundred  head  of  good  horses,  some  of  them  as  fleet  as 
"  ever  looked  through  a  bridle  "  ;  for  it  was  well  for 
the  rustler  to  own  fast  horses.  This  man  was  "  doing 


288  THE   STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

well/'  when  he  was  shot  and  hung  one  day  by  un- 
known parties,  his  body  not  being  discovered  until 

some  time  later.     Tom  W will  do  for  the  name 

of  this  man.  "  Stalker  Smith  "  will  come  near  enough 
to  the  name  of  another  successful  man  in  this  line  of 
business;  for  now  we  come  down  to  times  less  than 
half  a  decade  old,  and  could  easily  touch  upon  some  very 
tender  memories,,  which  may  as  well  be  left  untroubled. 
The  team  of  Stalker  Smith  came  home  one  day,  and 
in  the  wagon  was  the  driver,  shot  through  the  neck 
and  dead.  No  one  ever  knew  who  did  it. 

The  successes  of  some  of  these  rustlers,  and  the 
general  sympathy  in  which  rustler  principles  were  held, 
offered  temptation  to  many  ambitious  young  men  to 
go  into  the  same  business,  in  spite  of  the  risk  of  it. 
In  the  Big  Horn  country  of  Wyoming  it  was  for  a  time 
a  toss  up  when  a  new  cowboy  came  on  the  range 
whether  he  would  go  in  with  the  cowmen  or  join  the 
rustlers.  Sometimes  the  new  man  had  sudden  occa- 
sion to  regret  his  departure  from  the  strict  ways  of 
rectitude.  One  recalls  one  such  instance  which  was 
especially  sad.  There  was  a  young  cowpuncher  who 
came  up  from  Kansas  and  became  fascinated  with  the 
sort  of  cowpunching  he  found  going  on  in  his  adopted 
country,  a  trade  in  which  it  was  not  necessary  to  have 
any  capital  to  get  cattle,  or  even  any  iron  to  own 
them.  He  fell  in  with  two  men  whom  we  may  call 
Jimmy  and  Spoke  for  short,  these  at  least  being  names 
which  will  serve  the  purpose.  These  men  told  him 
that  they  were  engaged  in  a  very  risky  occupation, 
and  did  not  encourage  him  to  go  in  with  them,  but 
the  new  cowpuncher  insisted  that  he  wanted  to  be 
as  bad  a  man  as  anybody,  and  was  bound  to  try  this 
new  way  of  getting  along  rapidly  in  the  cattle  busi- 
ness. The  result  was  that  the  three  went  out  one  day 


THE  RUSTLER.  289 

pfter  "slow  elk/'  and  shot  down  half  a  dozen  cattle 
in  a  little  hollow,  where  they  thought  they  would  not 
be  observed  by  the  ranchers'  men.  Their  confidence 
in  this  latter  belief  was  ill-placed,,  for  they  had  not 
half  finished  the  skinning  of  their  illegal  beef  before 
they  were  surprised  by  a  party  of  cattle  men  and 
officers,  who  rose  up  from  the  edge  of  the  hill  above 
them  and  ordered  them  to  throw  up  their  hands.  In- 
stead of  doing  this,  all  the  rustlers  threw  themselves 
flat  on  the  ground,  each  behind  the  carcass  of  an  ani- 
mal. The  oldest  of  the  three  ordered  the  others  to  lie 
close  and  not  to  show  a  head  until  they  got  an  idea 
of  what  to  do,  but  the  Kansas  cowpuncher  could  not 
get  the  better  of  his  curiosity.  He  stuck  up  his  head 
over  the  back  of  his  dead  cow,  and  was  at  once  shot 
square  through  the  forehead  and  instantly  killed. 
Thus  ended  his  aspirations  as  a  rustler  on  the  very 
first  day  that  he  went  out. 

Spoke  jumped  to  his  feet  to  run  to  his  horse,  pull- 
ing at  his  revolver  as  he  rose.  He  was  shot  through 
the  right  wrist  and  his  pistol  dropped.  He  picked 
it  up  in  his  left  hand  and  was  shot  through  that  wrist 
as  he  ran.  He  and  Jimmy  none  the  less  got  to  their 
horses,  but  Jimmy's  horse  was  shot  down  just  as  he 
sought  to  mount.  Spoke  turned  to  him  and  said, 
"  Here,  Jimmy,  take  my  horse.  I'm  shot  so  I  can't 
ride  anyhow,  and  we  can't  both  get  away.  You  get 
on  and  ride,  and  keep  on  a-ridin'."  So  Jimmy  took 
his  comrade's  horse  and  rode  away  under  fire.  His 
mount  was  a  grand  one,  and  in  less  than  thirty-six 
hours  he  was  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  away, 
and  never  has  been  caught  yet.  His  plucky  fellow- 
rustler  was  captured,  tried,  and  imprisoned,  but  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  he  did  not  remain  in  prison  very 
long  and  is  to-day  a  free  man.  In  regard  to  the 


290  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

location  of  this  rude  little  drama,  which  did  not  occur 
so  very  long  ago,  it  will  do  to  say  in  the  rustler  ver- 
nacular that  it  happened  "  where  the  winds  come 
from." 

As  there  is  but  an  inaccurate  popular  knowledge 
in  regard  to  the  character  of  the  rustler  himself,  still 
less  exact  is  the  understanding  in  regard  to  his  occu- 
pation and  the  manner  in  which  he  carried  it  on.  In- 
deed, perhaps  there  are  not  a  few  experienced  cattle 
men  whose  mode  of  life  has  not  made  them  familiar 
with  all  the  tricks  of  the  rustler's  trade.  Really  the 
rustler  needed  to  be  the  most  expert  of  all  cow 
handlers,  for  he  had  to  deceive  the  most  expert  of  the 
legitimate  followers  of  the  trade,  and  was  forced  to 
outwit,  outride,  and  outbrand — sometimes  even  to  out- 
shoot — the  cowmen  who  had  perhaps  been  in  the  busi- 
ness all  their  lives.  He  needed  to  know  the  range 
brands  thoroughly,  and  to  know  the  manner  in  which 
they  could  most  successfully  be  changed  without  de- 
tection. 

It  might  be  supposed,  for  instance,  that  the  brand- 
ing iron  of  the  rustler  was  simply  a  straight  "  running 
iron,"  with  which  he  wrote  over  the  former  brand  on 
an  animal  his  own  brand;  or  it  might  be  supposed 
that  he  simply  impressed  his  own  hot  stencil  upon  the 
hide  of  the  creature,  thus  blotting  out  the  original 
brand.  This  would  be  very  clumsy  work,  apt  to  be 
easily  detected  by  the  nature  of  the  wound  left  upon  the 
hide  of  the  creature,  which  would  in  such  a  case  often 
slough  off  and  leave  visible  proof  that  there  had  been 
tampering  with  the  brand.  The  rustler  who  was  ;i 
past  master  in  his  art  was  very  fond  of  a  bit  of  hay 
wire,  or  better  yet,  of  telegraph  wire,  as  a  branding 
tool.  This  could  be  folded  up  and  put  in  the  pocket, 
so  it  could  be  easily  carried  without  much  chance  of 


THE  RUSTLER.  291 

detection.  Upon  occasion,  it  could  be  twisted  into 
the  form  of  almost  any  of  the  set  brands  of  the  district, 
or  made  into  shapes  which  would  cunningly  alter  such 
original  brands,  and  yet  leave  no  trace  of  the  original 
by  which  it  could  be  proved.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  rustler  was  branding  after  the  round-up 
in  some  cases,  and  it  would  not  do  for  him  to  claim  a 
calf  showing  a  sloughed-off  brand  at  a  date  when  all 
calves  were  fairly  to  be  supposed  well  of  their  spring 
branding  and  with  the  hair  clearly  showing  the  mark 
of  the  brand  wound.  After  the  rustler  had  used  his 
bit  of  wire,  the  whole  altered  brand  had  the  appear- 
ance of  having  been  a  genuine  brand  and  all  made  at 
the  same  time.  The  fresh  burn  fitted  in  with  the 
older  and  heavier  burning  in  such  way  that  it  was 
impossible  to  tell  legally  that  there  had  ever  been 
any  attempt  at  change — at  least  it  was  legally 
impossible  to  do  so  in  any  of  the  courts  sitting  in 
rustlerdom! 

Another  favourite  way  of  easing  down  a  brand  was 
by  means  of  branding  through  a  wet  blanket.  The 
heavy  iron  could  then  be  used,  and  yet  the  wound 
would  not  be  so  severe  as  to  "  give  the  thing  away/' 
as  the  saying  of  the  range  ran.  Experts  were  divided 
as  to  the  merits  of  these  two  methods  of  blotting 
brands,  but  the  easily  concealed  hay  wire  had  its  ad- 
vantages. It  was  so  easy  to  pull  a  bit  of  crooked  wire 
out  of  the  pocket,  heat  it  red  hot,  and  by  simply  laying 
it  upon  a  given  point  of  the  calf's  hide  acquire  title 
to  that  calf,  which  alone  would  represent  a  pretty  fair 
day's  work  for  a  poor  man. 

There  were  different  ways  in  which  the  rustler 
operated.  He  might  be  rustling  calves  for  his  own 
ranch,  or  he  might  be  rustling  beef  for  the  markets, 
and  he  might  work  a  little  differently  at  different 


292  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

times  in  either  specialty.  Of  course  he  had  always  to 
overcome  that  great  unerring  instinct  by  which  the 
cow  and  her  calf  always  kept  together  for  nearly  a 
year  of  the  calf's  life,  an  instinct  which  has  been  ex- 
plained as  a  part  of  the  whole  foundation  of  the  cattle 
business.  The  rustler  must  separate  these  two  in  order 
to  get  the  calf.  Sometimes  he  shot  down  the  cow,  and 
simply  took  away  the  calf  with  him.,  branding  it  as 
his  own.  This  might  be  before  the  round-up  or  after 
it,  and  the  calf  might  be  already  branded  or  not 
branded.  Or  he  might  make  up  a  bunch  of  calves  and 
hold  them  in  corrals  or  pastures  away  from  their 
mothers,  and  so  finally  drive  them  away  to  another 
part  of  the  range,  these  calves  either  branded  or  not 
branded  as  the  case  might  be. 

If  the  rustler  wanted  any  beef,  he  simply  shot 
down  any  animal  he  fancied  and  skinned  it,  carrying 
away  the  meat.  As  he  might  not  care  to  have  the 
incriminating  hide  found  in  his  keeping,  with  its  tell- 
tale brand  to  speak  against  him,  he  might  burn  up 
or  destroy  the  hide  or  throw  it  away  where  it  might 
not  be  found.  It  was  a  very  big  and  wild  country,  and 
not  many  persons  would  be  apt  to  cross  his  trail  in 
the  course  of  a  day  or  a  week. 

It  was  not  considered  any  crime  at  all  for  the  resi- 
dents of  the  country  to  kill  what  beef  they  wanted 
for  their  own  use,  provided  it  was  beef  that  belonged 
to  the  big  cattle  companies.  But  the  rustlers  were  not 
content  with  this.  They  wanted  to  do  a  little  more 
than  live.  So  they  began  to  regularly  market  this 
free  beef.  A  great  many  of  the  butcher  shops  in  the 
ragged  little  frontier  towns  would  take  all  the  risk  of 
handling  such  beef,  especially  if  this  happened  to  be 
in  one  of  the  recognised  rustler  towns,  where  a  trial 
involving  the  title  to  beef  always  went  one  way,  and 


THE  RUSTLER.  293 

that  not  in  favour  of  a  non-resident  or  a  big  cattle 
company. 

Under  these  conditions  the  rustler  was  able  to 
make  a  living  and  a  little  more  than  a  living,  and  had 
not  much  cause  to  complain;  or  as  he  would  probably 
have  phrased  it,  he  "  had  no  kick  coming."  But  pres- 
ently there  appeared  upon  his  horizon  a  change  of  con- 
dition which  offered  him  a  still  better  chance  to  get  on 
in  the  world,  and  gave  his  occupation  a  veritable 
"  boom."  Across  the  cattle  range  of  Nebraska  and 
Wyoming  came  the  advancing  arm  of  a  railroad,  the 
C.  B.  &  Q.  extension  into  Montana.  The  camps  of 
the  railroad  contractors,  where  hundreds  of  men  were 
emplo}^ed  and  had  to  be  fed,  made  a  most  enticing 
market,  one  right  at  the  door  of  the  rustler,  a  most 
accommodating  and  pleasant  thing  to  have  occur. 
The  rustler  was  a  boon  to  the  railroad  camps,  and  the 
latter  were  a  boon  to  him.  At  once  a  fine  traffic 
sprung  up  in  free  beef,  and  whole  communities  were 
benefitted  by  the  new  line  of  trade.  In  some  way  or 
other  the  rustler  always  managed  to  part  with  what 
money  he  made,  and  rarely  became  a  very  successful 
business  man,  but  during  the  railroad  days  a  number 
of  the  rustlers  got  hold  of  considerable  amounts  of 
money.  It  was  all  so  very  simple.  Here  were  the 
cattle.  Here  was  the  market.  There  was  no  com- 
plicated system  of  round-ups  and  drives  and  shipping 
and  inspecting,  and,  best  of  all,  a  man  did  not  need 
any  money  to  go  into  business.  All  he  required  was  a 
rifle  and  a  wagon.  It  was  no  wonder  that  under  so 
flattering  a  prospect  a  great  many  men  went  in  with 
the  clans  of  the  resident  rustlers.  The  result  was  so 
wholesale  a  stealing  of  the  range  cattle  of  non-resi- 
dents and  of  large  resident  outfits  that  the  industry 
of  cattle  raising  received  a  terrible  blow.  All  the 
20 


294:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

profits  of  the  ranches  were  going  into  the  hands  of  the 
rustlers,  and  the  herds  instead  of  increasing  were 
standing  still  or  decreasing.  Of  course,  this  state  of 
affairs  could  not  long  prevail,  and  there  ensued  the 
determined  fight  upon  the  rustlers  which  resulted 
ultimately  in  the  breaking  up  of  their  practices,  or  re- 
ducing them  to  an  endurable  extent. 

It  may  be  curious  information  to  some  to  learn 
the  exact  manner  in  which  brands  were  changed  by 
these  light-fingered  persons,  so  that  one  brand  was 
made  into  another  without  leaving  proof  behind  it  of 
the  change.  We  now  come  upon  a  delicate  field,  as  the 
rustling  operations  in  consideration  all  transpired 
within  a  few  years  back,  and  a  great  many  of  the  men 
who  assisted  in  them  might  not  like  to  have  their 
names  and  signs  manual  appear  in  print.  It  is  not 
alleged  that  any  or  all  of  the  brands  given  herein  are 
actual  or  genuine,  or  that  the  alterations  shown  were 
ever  actually  made  by  any  persons,  and  no  accuracy 
is  claimed  for  the  names  of  the  different  brands  men- 
tioned. They  are  simply  given,  as  the  "retired  rus- 
tler "  who  reviewed  them  remarked,  to  "  show  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  cow  business  in  a  good  climate."  There 
may  or  may  not  be  certain  cattle  men  or  certain  ex- 
rustlers  who  might  recognise  some  of  the  brands 
shown,  but  these  no  doubt  would  understand  the  mo- 
tive to  be  simply  one  of  accurate  explanation  of  the 
subject  in  general  and  not  in  particular. 

Thus,  we  may  say,  one  of  the  first  brands  to  appear 
on  the  upper  ranges  after  the  first  Southern  drives  was 
the  old  |O  brand.  Numbers  of  cattle  men  bought 
cattle  of  that  brand  to  stock  their  ranges,  and,  of 
course,  needed  to  rebrand  the  cattle.  It  was  an  easy 
thing  to  think  of  the  |QI  brand,  and  this  was  one  of 
the  largest  outfits  on  the  range.  But  let  us  suppose  a 


THE  RUSTLER.  295 

rustler  wanted  to  brand  one  of  the  |Q  cows  for  his 
own  private  purposes.  He  simply  took  his  little  iron 
or  wire,  and  put  a  little  top  to  the  figure  1,  making  it 
into  a  7.  It  then  appeared  thus:  7O — quite  a  dif- 
ferent thing  !  Still  more  different  was  it  written  with 
a  letter  S  after  it,  thus:  70S*  The  owner  would 
not  recognise  his  own  cow  thus  disguised.  Neither 
could  the  owner  of  a  |QI  cow  verJ  well  prove  his 
property  when  he  found  it  wearing  a  brand  which  said 
7OI-  The  matter  would  be  still  more  difficult  by  the 
time  the  next  rustler  had  made  it  7OL>  and  the  orig- 
inal |O  cow  would  be  very  difficult  to  recognise  under 
the  evolved  brand  HOB-  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  brand  mark  as  it  actually  shows  upon 
the  hide  is  not  so  sharp  and  clearly  defined  as  it  looks 
upon  paper. 

There  was  a  brand  known  upon  the  range  as  the 
Wrench  brand,  thus :  J—C-  By  the  time  the  rustler 
was  done  with  it  it  appeared  thus:  0— Q  Or  it 
might  assume  this  form,  QJ—JO'  and  be  called  the 
Bridle-bit  brand.  The  brand  21  was  easily  made  to 
read  26-  Without  much  trouble  999  could  appear 
quite  differently,  as  888-  The  hair  of  the  cow  would 
cover  up  any  little  defects  of  penmanship. 

A  brand  which  was  a  simple  V  was  easily  altered, 

as  thus :  A ;  but  the  skilful  rustler  would  have  been 
wise  enough  to  put  a  straight  line  across  it,  thus  :  -A- 

covering  up  the  junction  mark  of  the  two  brands.  Of 
the  old  brand  with  the  curious  name  of  the  Wallop, 
}{,  there  might  possibly  have  been  constructed  the 
brand  appearing  8- 


29 G  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

The  man  who  invented  the  Pipe-bowl  brand, 
had  reason  to  believe  he  had  a  good  brand  till  he  saw 

it  written  thus :  mj^m ;    and   then  thus :     ij  .      The 

originator  of  the  following  brand,  CO>  was  contented 
with  it  until  he  saw  it  changed  into  the  C3— ,  and 
called  the  "  Fiddle-back"  brand.  Bar  T,  written  —  T» 
was  readily  made  into  m ;  and  finally  it  might  have 
appeared  thus  :  I  Ml. 

The  open  A  U  was  written  thus  :  A  U  ;  but  it  came 
to  pass  that  a  brand  appeared  on  the  range  which  read 
thus  :  AW — quite  a  different  thing !  Another  reading 
of  the  — T  might  be  Q  Q  The  L  brand  might  be- 
come the  Block  brand,  thus:  Q.  The  brand  TOT 
might  have  a  second  story  put  underneath  it,  and  so 

become  "P  8B-     A  gentleman  by  name  of  Kid  A 

is  said  to  have  discovered  that  the  DHL  brand,  Q— L, 
looked  better  thus :  CH3-  Tne  2 1  brand  was  very 
pretty  when  made  into  the  Tin-cup  brand,  thus :  fij. 
The  Bar-11-Bar  (— -||— )  brand  was  much  improved 
in  the  estimation  of  some  by  being  inscribed 

I  I  .  under  which  form   it  was   called  the  Hog-pen 

brand.  The  owner  of  it  is  said  to  have  gone  over 
the  divide.  The  brand  ^  |  might  be  pleasant  as  re- 
minding some  Eastern  cattle  man  of  the  year  he  went 
into  the  cattle  business.  A  few  years  later  he  might  be 
looking  for  some  cows  marked  in  that  way,  and  would 
not  know  them  when  he  saw  them,  for  they  might  be 

marked  ^  Jj.     Or  they  might  also  be  markedCJO.     The 

brand  originally  made  thus,  -fc,  was  easily  made  into 
the  Wheel  brand,  thus :  A.  The  original  brand  1 1 


THE  RUSTLER.  297 

could  have  been  changed  to   U  ,  and  then  into    lp.     It 

is  not  stated  that  any  such  change  ever  was  made, 
but  it  might  have  been  made  along  with  any  of  the 
above.  The  letter  S,  alone  or  in  combinations,  was 
one  of  the  hardest  brands  for  the  rustler  to  change 
successfully. 

But  perhaps  the  best  instance  of  the  brand-blot- 
ter's or  "  brand-blotcher's  "  art,  one  which  shows  alike 
his  ingenuity  and  his  grim  sense  of  humour,  was  the  al- 
teration of  the  brand  of  the  Liverpool  and  Suffolk  Cat- 
tle Company,  a  wealthy  English  corporation  who  went 
into  business  in  Wyoming  with  a  view  to  gaining 
'American  money  and  American  experience.  The  lat- 
ter they  actually  got.  The  brand  of  this  company  was 
known  as  the  "  Guinea  brand,"  in  token,  perhaps,  of  the 
many  guineas  of  profits  which  were  to  flow  into  the 
company's  coffers.  It  was  written  thus  on  the  re- 
corder's books  :  f .  But  some  of  the  cattle  of  the  Eng- 
lish company  changed  their  guinea  stamp.  The  cow 
was  the  cow  for  a'  that ;  but  it  bore  the  mark  of  the 
good  old  American  dollar,  and  was  called  the  property 

of   the   "  Dollar  brand,"   whose    sign   was   thus :    4. 

IT 

This  was  something  which  the  Englishmen  could  not 
understand  for  a  long  time. 

Reference  to  the  cuts  will  show  the  process  of  evo- 
lution of  some  of  the  rustler  brands,,  and  will  afford  a 
clear  idea  of  the  means  by  which  the  intention  of  the 
old-time  identification  marks  of  the  cow  trade  was  per- 
verted by  dishonest  individuals.  Of  course  this  was  all 
a  serious  injury  to  the  legitimate  trade — indeed,  a  blow 
at  its  fundamental  principles  and  a  contravention  of 
the  original  principle  of  justice  among  cowmen.  Those 


298  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

of  the  ranchmen  who  were  suffering,  together  with 
those  who  were  opposed  to  all  such  dishonest  methods, 
soon  joined  forces  to  crush  out  this  growing  evil,  which 
must  else  have  put  an  end  to  the  cattle  trade.  The 
whole  sanctity  of  the  brand  was  going,  and  there  was 
danger  that  the  idea  of  its  integrity  as  a  sign  of  owner- 
ship would  lose  alike  legal  and  popular  value.  The 
height  of  these  depredations  was  reached  at  a  time  well 
within  modern  days  and  modern  methods;  none  the 
less  the  law  of  force  was  invoked,  as  well  as  the  law  of 
the  land,  and  this  upon  hoth  sides.  Two  or  three 
ranch  foremen  who  remained  loyal  to  their  employers' 
interests  were  forced  to  leave  the  country,  and  one  or 
two  others  were  killed  outright  by  the  rustlers.  Sev- 
eral non-resident  cattle  men  found  it  unsafe  to  live 
upon  their  ranches,  and  so  returned  to  their  homes 
in  the  States.  Upon  the  other  hand,  a  few  of  the  rus- 
tlers were  killed,  and  many  were  warned  or  threat- 
ened. Finally  came  the  climax  of  affairs,  which  ul- 
timately resulted  in  the  waning  of  the  star  of  the 
rustler  and  the  general  establishment  upon  the  range 
of  those  principles  of  justice  which  were  agreed  upon 
by  all  as  best  for  the  interests  of  all.  The  cattle  asso- 
ciations attained  the  practical  control  of  the  cattle  busi- 
ness. Cattle  men  held  the  most  responsible  positions 
of  public  life,  and  were  acknowledged  to  be  among  the 
most  important  citizens  of  the  State,  and  to  represent 
the  State's  most  considerable  industry.  Since  then  the 
cattle  business  has  become  one  of  business  methods  and 
high  organization. 

The  rustlers  were  wrong.  They  were  lawless  men — 
refugees  and  outlaws  many  of  them.  Yet  there  is  a 
certain  picturesqueness  in  their  story,  intimately  blonrl- 
ed  as  it  is  with  the  story  of  the  cattle  trade  and  of  the 
cowboy,  a  romantic  interest  which  we  should  not  over- 


THE  RUSTLER.  299 

look.  It  was  the  rustler  who  held  the  last  pinnacle 
in  the  fight  for  the  old  days  and  the  old  ways  of  the 
West. 

Since  his  fight  was  doomed  of  necessity  to  he  a 
losing  one,  let  us  at  least  endeavour  to  be  just  to  him. 
He  was  the  burglar  of  the  range;  but,  unlike  the 
burglar  of  the  cities,  he  very  often  thought  that  he 
was  justified  in  what  he  did  by  the  precedents  of  his 
country.  When  he  came  to  see  and  to  believe  that  he 
was  wrong,  he  in  many  cases  reformed  and  never  again 
went  back  to  the  old  ways.  There  should  be  no  stigma 
allowed  to  rest  upon  the  name  of  as  honest  and  hard- 
working a  class  of  men  as  any  of  the  country,  and  so 
there  should  be  no  confusing  of  the  rustler  with  the 
cowboy;  yet  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  some  of  the 
most  skilful  and  most  trusted  men  now  engaged  in 
punching  cows  upon  the  range  are  men  who  at  one 
time  were  "  a  little  on  the  rustle,"  and  who  are  by  no 
means  anxious  to  cover  up  their  past.  NOT  is  their 
past  a  barrier  to  them,  even  in  these  days,  in  the  open- 
hearted  country  of  the  range. 


CHAPTEE  XVI. 

WARS    OF    THE    RANGE. 

AT  times  there  have  been  wars  upon  the  cattle 
range — conflicts  between  armed  bodies  of  men  of  such 
numbers  as  to  lift  the  matter  above  the  field  of  mere 
personal  encounters.  These  wars  occurred  when  the 
interests  of  one  class  of  men  interfered  with  those  of 
another.  They  might  be  classed  as  wars  between  sheep- 
men and  cattle  men,  between  factions  of  cattle  men, 
or  between  the  cattle  men  and  rustlers  or  cattle  thieves. 
In  all  these  affairs  the  cowpuncher  was  the  private 
soldier,  the  rank  and  file  of  the  firing  line,  so  essential 
in  any  fighting.  In  his  capacity  as  armed  retainer  we 
shall  see  him  in  yet  another  light. 

Of  these  three  great  sources  of  armed  interferences, 
the  difference  of  interests  between  sheep  men  and  cat- 
tle men  is  the  one  which  has  attracted  the  least  atten- 
tion, but  which  is  the  most  serious  of  all.  This  is  a 
Avar  not  only  of  men,  but  of  conditions.  The  sheep 
are  bound  to  drive  out  the  cattle  from  much  of  £he 
range  held  by  them  to-day.  This  range  is  limited  and 
is  growing  less.  It  will  be  cut  into  more  and  more  by 
farmers  and  by  irrigation,  and  on  such  part  of  the  wild 
range  as  is  left  the  sheep  have  as  good  right  to  the 
free  grass  as  have  the  cattle.  As  they  can  live  on  less, 
and  as  they  destroy  the  life  of  the  range  for  cattle  as 
they  pass  over  it,  it  is  suro  they  will  have  the  best  of 

300 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  30 1 

the  final  argument.  The  cattle  men  resent  this 
thought  even  to-day.  What  must  have  been  their 
feelings  in  the  early  days,  when  the  idea  was  first  pre- 
sented to  them?  One  may  readily  find  the  answer 
when  he  considers  the  customs  and  precedents  which 
then  obtained.  The  great  remedy  for  trouble  in  those 
days  was  the  gun. 

When  the  great  herds  of  sheep  were  heard  of  as 
approaching  over  the  feeding  grounds  of  a  certain  dis- 
trict, the  cowmen  hurriedly  met  and  took  action.  A 
delegation  was  sent  to  the  men  in  charge  of  the  sheep 
bands,  warning  them  to  come  no  further.  If  the  sheep 
outfit  felt  strong  enough,  which  was  rarely  the  case,  it 
sent  back  its  defiance,  and  said  that  it  would  walk  its 
sheep  over  any  part  of  the  free  earth  that  seemed  most 
convenient.  The  cowmen  then  sent  to  town  for  extra 
ammunition. 

As  the  sheep  worked  in  over  the  country,  passing 
sometimes  over  high  and  dry  mountain  plateaus  and 
across  the  rocky  foothills,  the  herds  were  watched  con- 
stantly by  the  cowboys  of  the  nearer  ranch  outfits. 
The  solitary  sheep  herder,  sitting  with  head  downcast 
on  some  mountain  side,  might  hear  the  sing  of  a  bul- 
let. His  own  rifle,  rusted  and  full  of  grass  and  sand, 
might  fail  him  even  if  he  tried  to  use  it.  He  might 
take  the  hint,  or  again  receive  the  final  hint,  and  in- 
deed go  "  over  the  range,"  never  more  to  return.  The 
sheep,  sometimes  driven  by  the  cowboys  into  some  box 
canon  or  defile,  were  butchered  in  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands. One  sheep  outfit,  if  memory  serves  correctly, 
lost  nearly  four  thousand  sheep  one  afteroon  in  a  little 
canon  where  they  were  crowded  up,  their  bodies  being 
left  where  they  were  shot  down  and  their  attendants 
driven  out  of  the  country.  The  law  of  might  was  the 
only  one  held  in  respect  in  those  days.  The  general 


302  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

consensus  of  opinion  was  that  no  man  engaged  in 
walking  sheep  could  be  a  decent  citizen.  He  was  a 
low  down,  miserable  being,  whom  it  was  quite  correct 
to  terrify  or  kill.  A  popular  contempt  was  entertained 
for  "  sheep  meat/'  and  any  one  addicted  to  the  habit 
of  eating  it  was  considered  of  degenerate  tendency. 
The  little  cow  town  hotel  at  times  served  this  meat 
on  its  tables,  but  the  very  waiter  girls  had  scorn  in 
their  voices  when  they  called  to  the  cook  through  the 
kitchen  window  their  order  for  a  "  plate  of  sheep." 

Of  all  the  wars  of  the  range,  the  greatest  and  blood- 
iest was  the  Lincoln  County  war  of  New  Mexico,  a 
mere  factional  war,  in  which  there  was  no  principle  at 
stake,  and  no  motive  except  the  desire  of  robbery  and 
personal  revenge.  This  bloody  partisan  contest  was 
carried  on  at  a  time  before  the  modern  ways  of  gather- 
ing news  had  penetrated  so  far  as  the  remote  country 
which  was  the  scene  of  the  disturbances.  Did  that 
country  remain  to-day  as  wild  and  unsettled  as  it  was 
then,  and  as  far  from  railroad  and  telegraphic  commu- 
nications, the  best  of  the  newspapers  of  to-day  might 
have  no  inkling  of  equal  sensations  occurring  there 
•until  weeks  or  months  after  they  had  happened.  Eu- 
rope, Turkey,  the  Soudan,  are  not  so  far  as  was,  about 
the  year  1880,  the  little-known  country  between  the 
Rio  Grande  and  the  Pecos  River.  The  Lincoln 
County  war  raged  for  a  couple  of  years  or  more  in  spas- 
modic virulence,  until  the  whole  cattle  community 
was  ranged  in  factions,  one  half  against  the  other,  and 
each  man  doubtful  of  his  neighbour.  It  was  supposed 
that  this  war  resulted  in  the  death  of  two  or  three 
hundred  men,  but  no  one  will  ever  really  know  how 
many  men  were  killed  in  this  guerilla  fighting,  until 
the  tally-book  of  the  recording  angel  shows  how  many 
skeletons  are  lying  out  in  the  mountains  of  that  calm 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  303 

Southwestern  country,  where  even  to-day  the  deer 
hunter  may  find  a  human  skull,  or  the  scattered  mem- 
bers of  some  disjointed  thing  whose  nature  he  perhaps 
fails  to  recognise.  Yet  recent  as  was  the  occurrence 
of  these  terrible  events,  they  are  already  shrouded  in 
apathy  and  buried  in  forgetfulness.  The  public  never 
knew  of  this  war,  and  does  not  know  of  it  to-day.  The 
newspapers  of  the  cities  never  got  hold  of  the  facts  in 
any  actual  accurate  state.  Most  of  the  men  of  the  coun- 
try did  not  care  to  write  or  tell  all  they  knew.  The 
greatest  war  of  the  range  has  passed  into  the  oblivion 
which  broods  above  the  cattle  country.  Yet  were  the 
book  of  this  little  drama  written,  it  would  be  in  its 
way  a  series  of  hero  tales,  full  of  the  bravery  and  de- 
termination, the  faithfulness  and  hardihood  of  many; 
of  the  fiendish  cruelty,  the  lust  of  blood,  the  insatiable 
vindictiveness  of  others.  Human  life  was  never  cheap- 
er than  in  the  Spanish  Southwest.  In  this  time  of 
outbreak  it  seemed  that  all  the  smouldering  passions  of 
generations,  all  the  uncentred  hate,  the  misgrown  men- 
tality, the  distorted  love  of  blood,  and  the  reckless  love 
of  danger  for  its  own  morbid  pleasure  had  accumulated 
and  broken  forth  in  a  volcano  of  blood  and  crime.  The 
only  society  was  one  of  armed  conflict,  the  only  fellow- 
ship was  that  of  mutual  danger  or  mutual  criminality. 
There  were  no  law  courts  in  the  region  at  the  time 
fit  to  bear  such  name,  and  such  as  there  were  remained 
helpless.  The  Territorial  authorities  were  no  less 
helpless.  The  Governor  of  the  Territory  was  disposed 
to  quell  the  disturbance,  and  it  is  related  of  him  that 
in  pursuance  of  his  military  training  he  intended  to 
send  troops  and  cannon  down  into  the  desert  to  fight 
these  cowboys,  though  this  perhaps  was  related  with  a 
bit  of  the  grim  humour  of  the  times.  Prices  were 
put  on  the  heads  of  some  of  the  most  dangerous  men, 


304:  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

and  then  for  years  the  merry  chase  of  man-hunting 
went  on  until  most  of  the  gangs  were  broken  up. 
Many  of  the  men  were  killed,  and  those  remaining 
alive  dispersed  into  Old  Mexico.  During  the  preva- 
lence of  the  war  the  whole  country  had  been  terror- 
ized by  continual  scenes  of  violence  and  death,  and  so 
indiscriminate  had  been  the  murderous  spirit  of  the 
worst  of  the  outlaws  engaged  in  this  fighting  that  no 
man  knew  when  he  was  safe  from  some  one  or  other 
of  the  many  gangs  which  infested  the  country. 

The  cause  of  this  great  war  lay  primarily  in  the 
loose  state  of  society  at  the  time.  Far  down  in  the 
Seven  Eivers  country,  at  the  lower  portion  of  the  Pecos 
Valley,  was  the  ranch  of  old  John  Chisholm,  who  had 
ventured  in  there  when  few  other  men  had  dared  to 
try  the  country.  He  had  become  very  wealthy.  That 
was  the  day  of  Mavericks,  and  as  the  country  was 
very  wild  and  unknown — perhaps  it  is  less  known  to- 
day than  any  country  of  equal  size  in  the  United 
States — the  Chisholm  herd  soon  grew  to  number  any- 
where from  thirty  to  sixty  thousand,  and  Chisholm  and 
his  brother  lived  the  lives  of  veritable  cattle  kings. 
Under  them  at  times  were  large  numbers  of  cowboys, 
and  among  these  were  some  of  the  hardest  men  that 
ever  threw  a  leg  over  a  saddle,  as  indeed  they  had  need 
to  be. 

The  whole  region  was  full  of  horse  thieves  and 
outlaws,  the  worst  of  these  being  under  the  leader- 
ship of  the  notorious  cutthroat,  Billy  the  Kid,  a  name 
famous  even  yet  along  that  border.  Billy  the  Kid  died 
at  the  ripe  age  of  twenty-three,  and  at  that  time  had 
killed  twenty-three  men,  committing  his  first  murder 
when  he  was  but  fourteen  years  of  age.  He  and  his 
men  inaugurated  a  reign  of  terror,  which  made  his 
name  a  dread  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  3Q5 

They  lived  on  their  earnings  as  robbers,,  and  glad 
enough  were  the  Mexicans  of  the  remote  placitas  to 
give  them  anything  they  asked  in  return  for  life.  This 
young  fiend  and  his  gang  at  one  time  shot  down  in 
cold  blood  a  party  of  seven  Mexicans  whom  they  found 
encamped  at  a  water  hole,  declaring  later  that  they 
did  this  "  just  to  see  them  kick."  Twice  captured  by 
the  bold  officers  sent  after  him,,  the  Kid  escaped,  in 
the  last  instance  killing  his  two  guards  in  the  county 
jail,  and  then  openly  parading  on  the  platform  before 
the  court  house  for  half  an  hour  before  he  deigned  to 
move  off  upon  a  horse  which  he  took  from  a  passer-by. 
The  gang  of  the  Kid  made  a  practice  of  raiding 
the  little  white  settlements  then  just  coming  into  the 
country,  and  each  such  raid  was  apt  to  mean  a  life 
or  two.  Once  they  thus  visited  the  village  of  White 
Oaks,  and  at  night  amused  themselves  by  shooting  at 
the  lights  in  the  windows  of  the  houses.  It  chanced 
that  there  was  a  family  living  in  one  of  the  houses 
among  whom  were  some  women,  almost  the  first  that 
had  ever  come  to  the  camp.  The  stern  men  of  the 
frontier  might  pass  over  the  shooting  at  their  own 
windows,  but  they  would  brook  no  ill  treatment  of 
the  women  of  the  community.  A  band  of  pursuers 
was  made  up,  and  the  Kid  was  besieged  at  a  ranch 
house  some  miles  north  of  White  Oaks.  '  The  self-ap- 
pointed leader  of  the  pursuers  went  into  the  house 
with  a  flag  of  truce  and  was  detained  there.  Later  he 
tried  to  escape  from  the  house  and  was  shot  down  by 
the  Kid  as  he  ran,  this  breaking  up  the  siege  with  Billy 
still  in  possession  of  his  fortifications.  It  seemed  that 
the  Kid  would  never  be  killed  or  taken,  and  he  and  his 
men  became  more  and  more  daring  and  outrageous. 
Yet  it  is  a  curious  fact,  showing  well  the  condition  of 
the  society  of  the  times,  that  the  Kid  was  perfectly  well 


306  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

known  by  nearly  everybody  living  in  the  country,  and 
had  many  warm  friends  and  adherents.  A  great  many 
others  entertained  him  when  he  called,  and  professed 
for  him  a  friendship  which  they  did  not  feel,  but  dared 
not  deny.  If  a  man  was  suspected  by  the  Kid  as  apt 
to  convey  undesirable  news  to  undesirable  parties,  the 
Kid  never  made  any  accusations,  asked  any  questions, 
or  waited  for  any  denials.  He  simply  shot  the  man, 
laughed  about  it,  and  rode  on.  A  wilder  or  more 
lawless  part  of  the  earth  never  lay  out  of  doors  than 
this  portion  of  New  Mexico  at  this  time. 

It  was  the  habit  of  these  gangs  of  the  Kid's  people 
to  make  a  living  from  the  country  in  the  easiest  way 
possible.  Some  of  them  knew  all  about  the  Chisholm 
outfit,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  agreed  among  them 
that  it  would  be  a  desirable  thing  to  kill  the  owners  of 
the  ranch,  take  possession  of  the  property,  and  settle 
down  to  being  cattle  kings  themselves,  counting  upon 
the  remoteness  and  untravelled  nature  of  the  country 
to  protect  them  in  this  crime,  as  it  had  in  hundreds  of 
others.  There  may  have  been  some  disagreements  over 
Maverick  matters  and  that  sort  of  thing  which  never 
came  to  light,  but  the  conclusion  on  the  part  of  the 
gang  was  to  make  a  wholesale  killing  and  stealing. 

There  was  one  obstacle  to  the  carrying  out  of  this 
little  plan  of  taking  the  Chisholm  herds  and  killing 
John  Chisholm,  and  that  was  the  objection  John  Chis- 
holm had  to  both  phases  of  the  proposition.  Instead 
of  submitting  or  running,  he  sent  out  word  and  in  a 
short  time  had  about  him  as  good  a  little  army  of  fight- 
ing men  as  ever  got  together.  These  men  were  paid 
about  five  dollars  a  day  apiece,  and  had  arms  and  am- 
munition furnished  them.  In  a  short  time  there  wore 
practically  two  armies  scattered  about  over  the  country 
looking  for  somebody  to  kill.  As  neither  party  had 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  307 

any  uniform  or  distinguishing  mark,  it  was  difficult  for 
a  man  to  tell  his  friends  from  his  foes.  When  two 
parties  of  these  armed  riders  met,  it  was  known  there 
must  be  a  statement  as  to  sides,  for  all  the  country  was 
forced  to  take  one  side  or  the  other.  The  wayfarer 
who  saw  a  body  of  men  approaching  was  obliged  to 
guess,  and  guess  very  quickly,  which  side  he  favoured. 
If  he  guessed  wrong,  the  coyotes  had  another  meal. 
The  victim  was  left  lying  where  he  fell.  The  moun- 
tains were  full  of  dead  men,  and  each  camping  place 
by  the  infrequent  water  holes  had  its  tale  of  blood  and 
horror.  One  man  after  another  was  killed  thus  by 
men  of  one  side  or  the  other,  sometimes  men  who  were 
entirely  innocent  of  any  connection  with  the  trouble 
in  hand.  If  a  paid  fighter  was  killed,  another  man  was 
hired  to  take  his  place. 

Neither  faction  knew  how  many  men  the  other 
had  arrayed  against  it,  nor  did  it  care,  for  there 
w£s  no  regular  force  on  either  side  and  no  gen- 
eral meetings  of  the  opposing  clans,  the  little 
straggling  bands  of  fighters  being  scattered  about 
as  the  case  might  be,  not  only  near  the  Chisholm 
ranches,  but  over  the  whole  of  a  county  which  is  as 
large  as  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  At  one  time  there 
was  a  sort  of  pitched  battle  waged  at  the  county  seat 
of  Lincoln  County,  and  some  of  the  Kid's  men  "  holed 
up  "  in  a  'dobe  house  until  driven  out  by  fire,  meantime 
making  deadly  rifle  practice  upon  any  of  the  enemy 
who  chanced  to  show  a  head  anywhere  along  the  street 
of  the  tiny  'dobe  town.  Upon  the  hillside  back  of 
the  courthouse  one  of  the  opposing  force  attempted 
to  run  to  the  cover  of  a  big  rock,  from  which  he  could 
command  the  windows  of  the  'dobe  fortress  of  the 
Kid's  men.  As  he  ran  there  spoke  a  heavy  buffalo  gun 
from  the  window,  and  he  fell  shot  through  the  back 


308  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

at  four  hundred  yards.  He  was  not  killed  at  once, 
and  lay  upon  the  hillside  all  the  rest  of  the  afternoon 
waving  his  hand  for  help,  but  no  one  dared  go  near 
him;  and  there  he  died,  one  of  the  cowboy  victims 
of  this  war — a  death  inglorious  enough,  but  met  in 
pursuance  of  what  the  poor  fellow  thought  was  his 
duty. 

Many  were  the  stories  of  the  bloody  incidents  of 
the  Lincoln  County  war  one  heard  upon  the  scenes 
of  their  happening  and  within  the  year  or  so  follow- 
ing their  occurrence,  but  it  would  be  sickening  to  tell 
the  full  details  of  this  great  feud,  or  enter  into  the 
long  story  of  its  history  of  open  or  secret  assassina- 
tions. It  is  enough  to  say  that  the  outlaws  who  were 
at  the  bottom  of  it  were  gradually  defeated.  The  offi- 
cers of  the  land  were  as  brave  men  as  ever  lived,  and 
they  never  ceased  in  their  killing  or  capturing  until 
they  themselves  were  killed,  and  then  their  deputies 
took  up  the  work.  Prices  were  put  on  the  heads  of 
the  leaders,  and  this  made  traitors  of  many  of  the  men, 
all  the  arts  of  State's  evidence  and  the  like  being  em- 
ployed by  the  courts^  now  gradually  becoming  stronger 
in  the  country.  Gradually  the  war  died  away  in  a 
series  of  personal  feuds,  which  resulted  in  many  kill- 
ings }^ears  later.  Some  of  the  hired  fighting  men  left 
the  country  when  it  began  to  get  too  hot  for  them, 
and  some  of  these  may  be  living  now  on  the  Northern 
cow  ranges,  not  telling  all  the  things  they  know  about 
the  past.  Indictments  were  out  for  many  men  who 
never  had  service  of  warrant  made  on  them. 

Pat  Garrett,  the  man  who  had  been  elected  sheriff 
for  the  express  purpose  of  killing  Billy  the  Kid,  and 
who  had  sent  word  to  him  that  one  or  the  other  of 
them  must  be  killed — to  which  Billy  gave  a  cordial 
assent — finally  got  track  of  the  little  ruffian  just  as  he 


WAKS  OF  THE  RANGE.  3Q9 

was  about  to  leave  the  country  for  Mexico.  It  was 
reported  that  Billy  was  to  call  at  night  at  a  certain 
ranch  to  say  good-bye  to  his  sweetheart,  a  Mexican 
senprita,  and  JLJat  Garrett  went  to  the  house  and  se- 
creted himself  behind  the  bed  of  the  ranch  owner  in 
the  room  nearest  the  entrance.  After  dark  Billy  came 
to  the  house,  passing  two  of  Garrett's  men  half  sus- 
piciously as  they  sat  on  the  ground  outside  the  door. 
He  apparently  was  about  to  repent  of  having  violated 
his  customary  rule  of  shooting  first  and  inquiring 
afterward,  and  had  pulled  his  gun  from  the  scabbard 
and  was  looking  out  at  the  men  as  he  came  backing 
into  the  door,  with  his  boots  in  one  hand.  Garrett 
saw  and  recognised  him,  and  at  once  shot  and  killed 
him;  none  too  quick,  for  Billy  heard  him  as  he  rose 
from  behind  the  bed,  holding  the  scared  ranchman 
down  with  one  arm  as  he  fired.  Billy  turned  swiftly 
about  and  made  a  quick  but  ineffectual  shot,  for  he 
was  dead  even  as  he  fired.  Pat  Garrett  to-day  is  a 
respected  ranchman,  as  pleasant  a  man  as  one  would 
ask  to  meet.  All  that  country  now  is  trying  to  forget 
its  earlier  history,  and  little  is  ever  done  to  dimin- 
ish the  general  ignorance  in  regard  to  the  most  seri- 
ous and  most  bloody  factional  war  ever  known  upon 
the  cattle  range. 

The  last  of  the  important  cattle  wars  was  the  some- 
what famous  "  rustler  war  "  of  1892,  in  which  a  cam- 
paign was  made  by  the  cattle  men  of  Wyoming  against 
the  rustlers  of  Johnson  County,  Wyoming.  This 
"  war "  was  not  without  its  opera-bouffe  aspects, 
though  it  was  ventilated  for  each  day  for  over  three 
weeks  in  the  daily  press,  and  heralded  to  the  corners 
of  the  world.  It  was  very  much  an  affair  of  going 
after  rustlers  with  a  brass  band,  and  it  did  not  result 
so  successfully  as  was  hoped  by  the  leaders  of  the  pro- 
21 


310  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

ject.  Only  two  men  were  killed  in  this  "  war/7  yet 
the  matter  attracted  far  more  attention  than  any 
similar  clash  that  ever  occurred  in  the  cattle  coun- 
try. This  was  simply  because  of  the  newspaper  no- 
toriety it  had.  An  old  cowman  covered  the  case  per- 
fectly when  he  said:  "  There  might  be  twenty-five 
men  killed  each  day  down  in  Lincoln  County  in  the 
old  times,  and  it  wouldn't  make  half  the  stir  that  is 
made  nowadays  if  one  man  shoots  at  another  in  Wyo- 
ming. The  newspapers  make  all  the  difference."  The 
full  force  of  such  a  remark  can  never  be  felt  unless  it 
has  been  one's  fortune  to  live,  at  some  time  or  other 
in  his  life,  in  a  country  where  there  were  no  newspa- 
pers and  no  law.  He  is  then  back  at  the  beginning 
of  the  world,  antedating  civilization-,  and  in  a  posi- 
tion to  see  the  crude  and  grim  forces  underlying  this 
human  nature  which  pretends  later  to  compose  itself 
with  the  ways  of  society,  but  which  has  really  a  snarl 
and  a  claw  not  far  away. 

The  newspaper  accounts  of  the  rustler  war  of  1892 
were  in  many  respects  incorrect,  the  despatches  coming 
from  Buffalo,  in  Johnson  County,  the  seat  of  the  rus- 
tler element,  being  entirely  contradictory  to  those 
emanating  from  Cheyenne,  the  headquarters  of  the 
big  cowmen  concerned  in  the  raid.  One  gathers  his 
beliefs  in  regard  to  the  situation  not  from  the  news- 
paper accounts,  but  from  thorough  review  of  the  mat- 
ter upon  one  hand  with  a  cowman  who  was  one  of  the 
participants  in  the  raid,  and  upon  the  other  hand  with 
some  rustlers  who  were  at  Buffalo  and  thoroughly  con- 
cerned in  all  the  incidents  which  occurred  on  that 
side  of  the  "  war." 

For  a  long  time  the  rustlers  had  boon  making  lifo 
a  burdon  to  tho  locn'timate  cowmen  of  the  countios  of 
Johnson,  ISTatrona,  and  Converse,  until  they  had  nearly 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  31 1 

brought  to  a  standstill  all  the  proper  operations  of  the 
cattle  industry.  Before  the  establishment  of  the  live 
stock  commission  and  the  brand  inspectors,  it  was  im- 
possible for  a  ranchman  to  tell  whether  he  was  going 
to  come  out  at  the  end  of  the  year  with  any  cattle  left 
or  not.  Practically  the  whole  country  was  living  on 
stolen  beef,  and  not  content  with  this  and  with  serving 
notice  on  the  cattle  companies  that  they  would  no 
longer  be  allowed  to  hold  their  round-ups,  the  rustlers 
began  to  ship  beef  by  car-load  lots  to  the  markets  of 
the  East.  As  there  were  no  brand  inspectors  there 
to  detect  the  fraudulent  nature  of  such  shipments, 
there  was  imminent  danger  that  the  illegal  cattle  men 
would  entirely  ruin  the  legal  ones.  The  extent  of 
the  losses  suffered  by  the  cattle  men  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  within  the  first  year  after  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  brand  inspectors  at  the  markets  they 
sent  back  to  the  commissioners  of  the  State  $127,000 
of  "  estray  money  "  on  cattle  passing  to  market  from 
the  Wyoming  range.  The  commissioners  found  proper 
ownership  for  all  but  $14,000  of  this,  but  refused  some 
of  the  funds  to  rustlers  who  openly  claimed  dues  there- 
in. This  appearance  of  the  action  of  the  new  cattle 
laws  was  extremely  unsatisfactory  to  the  rustlers,  and 
it  resulted  in  a  practical  solidification  of  the  various 
rustler  factions,  and  made  of  the  county  of  Johnson  a 
rustler  settlement,  where  the  cattle  men  had  no  voice. 
In  four  years  the  cattle  men  brought  one  hundred  and 
eighty  suits  in  Johnson  County  against  rustlers  for 
stealing  beef  or  calves,  but  no  jury  could  be  found 
which  would  convict  a  man,  and  the  only  case  in  which 
a  rustler  was  ever  punished  was  one  in  which  a  thief 
bad  killed  a  cow  and  taken  home  a  quarter  of  the  beef, 
for  which  he  was  convicted  of  petty  larceny  and  as- 
sessed the  value  of  the  beef,  about  eighteen  dollars. 


312  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

The  rustlers  posed  as  small  stockmen,,  and  did  all 
they  could  to  array  the  interests  of  the  actual  small 
stockmen  against  those  of  the  "  barons/7  or  ranch  capi- 
talists, claiming  that  the  fight  was  one  of  wealth 
against  men  in  moderate  circumstances,  and  asserting 
that  as  to  the  methods  practised  in  acquiring  cattle, 
the  big  ranchmen  were  no  better  than  they  should 
be.  In  this  latter  statement  there  was  colour  of  truth 
in  many  instances,  for  the  fortune  of  more  than  one 
man  engaged  in  the  raid  against  the  rustlers  was  more 
than  probably  laid  in  the  early  and  active  efforts  of 
their  foremen  with  the  branding  iron.  When  such 
foremen  sought  to  carry  on  the  old  methods  for  them- 
selves which  they  had  practised  for  their  employers, 
the  latter  made  objection,  feeling  that  there  had  been 
a  change  in  the  former  relations  of  meum  and  tuum. 
There  is  large  undercurrent  of  unwritten  history  on 
both  sides  of  the  question  in  this  rustler  war.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  there  was  much  bitterness  felt  on  both  sides, 
and  no  doubt  both  sides  thought  they  had  some  partial 
justification  in  many  things  which  they  did  or  at- 
tempted to  do. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1892  a  number  of  the  large 
cattle  owners  met  at  Cheyenne  and  resolved  upon  a 
general  raid  against  the  rustlers,  they  having  the  names 
of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  men  whom  they 
claimed  to  know  were  engaged  in  the  rustling  business, 
some  thirty-five  of  whom  they  agreed  among  them- 
selves either  to  kill  or  drive  out  of  the  country.  In 
this  movement  to  invoke  the  old-time  ways  of  the 
range  were  several  men  prominent  in  State  affairs,  a 
member  of  the  Legislature,  a  member  of  the  stock 
commission,  and  some  two  dozen  wealthy  cattle  men, 
several  of  whom  were  practically  non-resident  Eastern- 
ers who  had  large  holdings  of  cattle  in  Wyoming. 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  313 

There  never  was  a  more  select,  or  a  more  inefficient, 
lynching  party  started  out  across  the  plains.  Nearly 
all  the  cowmen  of  the  movement  were  men  of  culture 
and  refinement.  Two  Harvard  graduates  were  among 
the  outfit.  There  was  a  young  Englishman  along  to  see 
the  fun — which  he  saw — and  all  in  all  the  gathering 
was,  socially  speaking,  everything  that  could  be  asked. 
It  was  incidentally  remarked  in  one  of  the  newspaper 
reports  that  one  of  the  select  lynchers  while  asleep 
in  camp  one  day  chanced  to  toss  out  his  hand  over  his 
blankets,  thus  displaying  two  large  diamond  rings 
which  he  wore  as  part  of  his  range  costume.  It  is 
not  justly  to  be  said  of  these  men  that  they  were  not 
brave  and  determined,  and  it  probably  never  occurred 
to  them  that  they  would  fail  of  carrying  out  their  pro- 
gramme as  arranged  in  detail  without  experiencing 
any  great  hindrance  on  the  part  of  the  men  they  were 
intending  to  hang,  shoot,  or  drive  out  of  the  county. 
They  had  read  of  such  things  being  done,  and  agreed 
that  it  was  desirable  they  should  do  some  of  those 
things  for  themselves.  That  one  of  their  number 
who  tells  this  story  of  the  raid  admits  frankly  that 
they  made  a  great  mistake.  They  were  all  new  at 
that  sort  of  business,  Eastern  men  who  had  not  been 
reared  in  the  hard  school  of  the  old  times,  and  who, 
while  they  might  have  been  fit  for  privates  in  such 
an  enterprise,  were  absolutely  unfit  for  leaders;  in 
which  latter  capacity  there  seems  to  have  been  a  gen- 
eral willingness  to  serve.  The  men  who  should  have 
been  in  charge  were  the  men  who  were  hired  by  the 
day  to  serve  as  privates — twenty  fighting  Texans,  cow- 
punchers  from  the  lower  range,  who  were  imported 
for  this  purpose  and  paid  five  dollars  a  day  and  ex- 
penses to  go  along  and  see  or  assist  in  the  hanging, 
shooting,  and  driving  out.  Had  the  leader  of  the  cow- 


314  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

boys  been  the  leader  of  the  party,  the  result  might 
have  been,  at  least  in  some  respects,  different;  for  here 
was  a  man  with  followers  who,  though  they  had  not 
accumulated  enough  funds  to  afford  to  wear  diamond 
rings  when  going  to  a  lynching,  had  none  the  less 
served  in  the  rude  apprenticeship  of  Western  life  on 
the  plains,  and  knew  far  more  about  partisan  cam- 
paigning than  all  the  men  who  acted  as  the  leaders 
of  this  raid. 

The  party  as  finally  organized  numbered  forty- 
three  men,  including  the  twenty  Texans,  and  their  out- 
fit was  as  perfect  as  money  could  buy.  They  had  three 
wagons  and  plenty  of  cooks,  and  evidently  intended  to 
travel  in  perfect  comfort.  Secretly  embarking  their 
outfit  on  a  train  at  Cheyenne  at  night,  early  in  April, 
1892,  they  went  by  rail  to  Casper,  Wyoming,  arriving 
there  the  following  night.  Thence  they  started  with 
their  horses  and  wagons  overland  across  the  wild  coun- 
try, something  like  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles,  which 
lay  between  them  and  the  seat  of  war.  The  first  seri- 
ous business  of  the  expedition  was  at  the  K.  C.  ranch, 
occupied  by  two  well-known  rustlers,  Nate  Champion 
and  Mck  Ray.  The  raiders  held  up  this  ranch  at  day- 
break, and  early  in  the  morning  took  prisoners  two 
freighters  who  happened  to  be  stopping  at' the  house, 
and  who  came  o~»t  of  the  house  to  go  toward  the  barn. 
The  house  was  then  surrounded  by  a  firing  party  of 
twelve  men,  it  being  supposed  that  Champion  and  Ray 
would  soon  miss  the  other  men  and  come  out  to  see 
what  had  become  of  them.  Presently  one  of  the  rus- 
tlers, Ray,  stepped  to  the  door,  and  at  once  fell  under 
the  rifle  fire  of  the  men  who  lay  concealed  and  waiting 
for  him.  The  participants  in  this  raid  are  very  reti- 
cent in  regard  to  the  names  of  those  who  did  any 
shooting,  but  one  of  the  freighters  taken  prisoner 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  315 

afterward  said  that  it  was  a  smooth-faced  boy,  one  of 
the  Texas  lighters,  who  took  the  first  hurried  aim 
and  shot  Ray  down.  Hay  was  shot  again  as  he  crawled 
back  into  the  house.  The  other  rustler,  Champion, 
remained  game  till  the  last  and  refused  to  come  out, 
keeping  up  his  fire  upon  his  besiegers  whenever  op- 
portunity offered.  Champion  was  finally  driven  out 
by  means  of  fire.  A  wagon  load  of  hay  was  pushed  up 
against  the  ranch  house  and  set  on  fire,  so  that  the 
cabin  was  burned  over  the  head  of  the  rustler  defend- 
ing it.  The  body  of  Kay  was  later  found  burned  and 
charred. 

When  the  heat  became  too  much  for  him,  Cham- 
pion ran  from  the  burning  house,  endeavouring  to 
reach  a  little  gully  near  by.  He  was  shot  as  he  ran, 
and  it  was  later  said  that  twenty-eight  wounds  were 
found  in  his  body.  The  rustler  side  in  this  war  claim 
that  when  Champion  was  first  shot  down  he  was  only 
wounded,  and  asked  the  men  who  came  up  to  him 
not  to  shoot  again,  but  that  one  of  the  party  placed 
his  rifle  to  Champion's  face  and  deliberately  shot  him 
as  he  lay  upon  the  ground.  The  body  of  Champion 
was  left  with  a  card  pinned  to  it  bearing  the  inscrip- 
tion, "  Cattle  Thieves,  beware."  In  Champion's  pock- 
et, after  his  death,  there  was  found  a  roughly  written 
memorandum  of  the  events  of  the  day  as  they  appeared 
to  him  as  he  was  shut  in  his  cabin  by  the  invading 
party.  He  told  of  the  suffering  of  his  comrade  Ray, 
stated  the  hour  of  Ray's  death,  mentioned  his  efforts 
to  get  a  shot  at  the  men  who  were  firing  at  him, 
stated  calmly  that  he  did  not  think  he  could  hold  out 
much  longer,  and  mentioned  the  appearance  of^  the 
wagon-loa'd  of  hay  which  he  knew  was  to  burn  him'out. 
Then,  as  though  in  deliberate  address  to  his  fellows 
of  the  range,  he  wrote,  "  Boys,  I  guess  it  is  all  up. 


316  THE  STOEY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

Good-bye."  Had  the  fact  not  been  established  clearly 
enough  otherwise,  it  might  have  been  seen  from  the 
simple  nature  of  this  pitiful  little  scrawl  that  the  rus- 
tler Champion  \vas  a  brave  man.  He  had  long  been 
known  and  dreaded  by  the  cattle  men. 

While  the  siege  of  the  K.  C.  ranch  was  in  progress, 
two  men  came  along  the  trail  with  a  wagon,  and  owing 
to  the  poor  management  by  the  leaders  of  the  raiders, 
these  men  were  allowed  to  escape,  which  they  did  at 
full  speed  on  the  horses  which  they  took  from  the 
wagon.  It  happened  that  one  of  these  men  was  Jack 
Flagg,  a  man  whose  brand,  p,  was  odious  in  the  eyes 
of  more  than  one  of  the  cattle  men  who  could  here 
have  held  him  prisoner.  Flagg  was  one  of  the  promi- 
nent men  among  the  resident  range  people  who  were 
accused  of  rustling.  His  escape  meant  the  ruin  of 
the  raiders'  expedition.  Flagg  never  drew  rein  until 
he  had  alarmed  his  friends  from  the  K.  C.  ranch  to 
the  town  of  Buffalo.  In  twelve  hours  all  Bustlerdom 
was  alarmed  and  hurrying  to  the  combat.  The  town 
of  Buffalo,  the  county  seat  of  Johnson  G'ounty,  and 
the  headquarters  of  the  free-range  element,  was  at 
once  aroused  into  that  deadly  fury  w*hich  among  West- 
ern men  means  but  one  thing.  Immediate  wrar  was 
to  be  given  those  who  had  carried  war  into  this 
country. 

Nor  was  this  war  upon  the  side  of  the  rustlers  to 
be  without  show  of  legal  justice.  It  is  all  very  well 
to  say  that  the  principle  of  the  majority  is  a  dangerous 
principle  in  the  hands  of  dangerous  men;  yet  how  can 
this  principle  legally  be  set  aside  in  any  of  the  forms 
of  this  Government,  whether  in  the  election  of  offi- 
cers national  or  municipal?  Legally  speaking,  the 
county  of  Johnson  was  as  resnlarly  organized  ,1?  any, 
and  a  man  who  lived  there  had  as  good  a  right  to  vote 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  317 

for  the  officers  of  that  county  as  has  any  man  of  any 
part  of  the  Union.  The  residents  of  Johnson  County 
had  legally  elected  as  their  sheriff  Ked  Angus,  who 
therefore  was  the  recognised  agent  of  the  law.  As 
sheriff,  Angus  summoned  about  him  a  posse  of  the  citi- 
zens of  Buffalo  and  vicinity,  in  numbers  sufficient,  as 
he  thought,  to  accomplish  the  arrest  of  the  invading 
party  of  raiders,  who  of  course  had  no  legal  status 
whatever  in  that  country,  and  who  were  breaking  laws 
of  a  nature  always  held  to  be  higher  than  those  laws 
which  they  accused  the  rustlers  of  violating.  Surely  a 
more  dramatic  or  more  involved  situation  never  ap- 
peared upon  the  cow  range  than  this,  when  two  armies, 
each  armed,  each  able  and  anxious  to  kill,  met  each 
other  to  decide  an  issue — an  issue  in  which  both  were 
wrong!  In  no  country  but  the  West  of  the  cattle 
days  could  any  such  situation  ever  have  arisen. 

The  sheriff  had  a  vast  posse  at  his  back  when  he 
started  forth  from  Buffalo  to  arrest  the  band  of  cattle 
men.  The  latter,  knowing  what  would  be  the  result 
of  their  mistake  in  allowing  the  two  men  to  escape  and 
spread  the  news,  pushed  on  as  fast  as  they  could  into 
the  country  where  they  expected  to  find  others  of  the 
men  whom  they  had  upon  their  list  as  men  to  be  shot, 
hung,  or  driven  out  of  the  country.  They  seem 
little  to  have  known  the  seriousness  of  their  under- 
taking, or  the  sternness  of  the  men  against  whom  they 
were  proceeding,  among  whom,  wrong  as  they  were, 
were  some  of  the  best  cowpunchers  and  hardiest  plains- 
men of  the  entire  cattle  range.  The  raiders  kept  their 
wagons  with  them  as  long  as  they  could,  and  then 
pushed  on  ahead,  leaving  their  supplies  behind  them. 
In  a  little  while  after  that  the  rustlers  swarmed  in 
upon  the  trail,  seized  the  wagons,  and  took  prisoners 
the  teamsters.  From  that  time  the  invaders  ceased  to 


318  THE  STORY  OF  THE   COWBOY. 

be  the  pursuers  and  became  themselves  the  pursued. 
They  stopped  at  the  T.  A.  ranch,  by  this  time  discover- 
ing what  the  circumstances  really  were.  Here  they 
stood  at  bay  and  were  surrounded  by  the  forces  of 
the  rustlers.  There  were  three  hundred  and  nine- 
teen men  in  the  body  which  besieged  the  cattle 
men  at  the  T.  A.  outfit,  the  force  being  made 
up  of  rustlers  and  rustler  sympathizers,  with  perhaps 
a  great  many  others  who  were  afraid  to  refuse  the 
invitation  to  join  the  fight. 

The  cowmen  were  outnumbered,  although  they 
claimed  that  they  expected  re-enforcements  from  a 
body  of  Montana  cattle  men  within  the  week.  Yet  they 
were  brave  as  any,  and  moreover  they  had  intelligence 
and  skill  upon  their  side.  They  quickly  fortified  the  T. 
A.  ranch  with  regular  rifle  pits,  barricaded  the  build- 
ings with  logs,  made  firing  stands  out  of  more  logs,  and 
really  Jiad  things  in  fine  shape  for  a  long  siege  or  hot 
attack.  The  rustlers  constantly  increased  in  numbers 
and  were  determined  to  kill  or  capture  the  entire 
party.  Firing  was  kept  up  at  long  range  on  both 
sides,  though  without  much  damage.  One  old  fellow 
by  the  name  of  Boone,  a  plainsman  with  a  big  buffalo 
gun,  was  on  the  rustlers'  side,  and  was  extremely  ac- 
curate with  his  fire.  He  would  throw  a  big  bullet 
against  the  ranch  door  or  through  a  window  nearly 
every  time  he  shot.  There  were  twenty-six  horses 
killed  in  one  day  in  the  T.  A.  corral  by  the  rustler  fire, 
and  it  must  have  appeared  to  the  cattle  men  that  they 
were  soon  to  be  set  on  foot  in  the  middle  of  a  very 
hostile  country.  It  was  never  admitted  that  any  of 
the  rustlers  were  killed  in  this  long-range  firing,  and 
the  cattle  men  will  not  admit  that  they  had  any  one 
killed  in  the  fight,  thorurh  they  pny  that  two  of  their 
men  were  accidentally  killed.  One  of  them  was  thrown 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  319 

by  his  horse  and  his  rifle  accidentally  discharged,  shoot- 
ing him  through  the  thigh  so  that  he  afterward  died. 
A  second  man,  while  hurrying  out  of  the  door  of  the 
ranch  house  to  go  after  some  water,  knocked  his  own 
revolver  out  of  its  holster,  and  was  so  shot  through 
the  abdomen,  dying  later.  One  of  these  men  was 
still  living  at  the  time  of  the  surrender,  and  both  of 
them  came  from  the  ranks  of  the  cowpunchers  who 
were  hired  to  do  the  fighting.  The  siege  lasted  for 
three  days,  the  firing  being  kept  up  more  or  less  stead- 
ily on  both  sides.  The  cattle  men  claim  that  they 
knew  many  of  the  men  in  the  rustler  party  were  small 
stock  men  who  were  really  not  in  sympathy  with  the 
rustlers,  and  who  took  pains  to  fire  high  when  shoot- 
ing at  the  ranch  house. 

While  all  this  was  going  on,  the  entire  civilized 
world  knew  every  detail  of  the  combat  from  day  to 
day.  The  commanding  officer  of  Fort  McKinney, 
which  lay  so  close  to  the  T.  A.  ranch  that  the  firing 
could  be  heard  distinctly  all  the  time,  was  asked  by 
the  county  authorities  to  assist  in  the  capture  of  the 
cattle  men.  This  he  declined  to  do,  and  he  also  de- 
clined to  lend  the  sheriff  a  cannon  or  a  Gatling  gun 
for  use  in  carrying  the  barricaded  ranch  house.  The 
rustlers  then  began  plans  for  blowing  up  the  ranch 
house  with  dynamite,  they  having  found  in  the  cap- 
tured wagons  one  hundred  pounds  of  that  article  in- 
tended for  use  against  themselves,  and  having  con- 
cluded that  it  would  be  well  to  show  the  cattle  men 
still  more  fully  the  unwelcome  situation  of  being 
hoist  by  one's  own  petard.  The  commander  at  Fort 
McKinney  wired  his  superior  officer  as  to  what  course 
he  should  pursue,  and  the  Government  at  "Washington 
replied  through  the  general  in  charge  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Missouri,  stationed  at  Omaha,  that  the 


320  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

officer  in  command  at  Fort  McKinney  should  put  an 
end  to  this  armed  disturbance,  and  should  turn  over 
his  prisoners  to  the  proper  authorities,  but  should  not 
deliver  any  prisoners  into  the  hands  of  the  opposite 
faction.  On  the  third  day  of  the  siege  a  troup  of 
cavalry  rode  out  from  Fort  McKinney  carrying  a  flag 
of  truce,  to  which  the  cowmen  answered.  Their  sur- 
render to  the  United  States  forces  was  demanded,  and 
to  this  they  gladly  agreed  upon  the  assurance  that 
they  would  not  be  turned  over  to  the  authorities  at 
Buffalo,  which  all  knew  meant  the  same  thing  as  death. 
The  sheriff  demanded  these  prisoners  of  the  United 
States  troops,  but  was  refused.  There  was  then  talk 
among  the  rustlers  of  taking  away  the  prisoners  by 
force  and  holding  them  for  civil  trial  at  Buffalo.  No 
forcible  attempt  of  this  nature,  however,  was  made, 
although  there  was  very  bitter  feeling  among  the  rus- 
tlers at  seeing  their  invaders  escape  from  them. 

The  officer  in  charge  of  the  prisoners  was  instructed 
to  take  them  away  from  the  scene  of  conflict,  remov- 
ing them  to  Fort  Eussell,  about  one  hundred  miles  be- 
low. Here,  about  three  weeks  after  their  outset  from 
Cheyenne,  without  their  outfit,  without  their  horses, 
with  two  of  their  fighting  men  killed  and  two  of  their 
teamsters  missing,  they  arrived  at  Fort  Eussell,  not 
in  the  character  of  victorious  returners,  but  as  prison- 
ers in  charge  of  the  United  States  troops.  In  condi- 
tion they  were  somewhat  different  from  that  under 
which  they  had  started  forth.  Some  of  them  were 
sick,  all  were  weary  and  bedraggled,  and  all  the  leaders 
were  willing  to  admit  that  they  ha<J  had  enough  of 
vifjilante  work  for  the  time.  They  admitted  that  they 
had  been  mistaken  and  had  not  known  what  was  be- 
fore them,  but  still  contended  that  their  movement 
had  of  itself  been  just  and  right. 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  321 

As  every  detail  of  the  fight  at  the  T.  A.  ranch  had 
been  given  the  public  through  the  daily  press,  so  was 
the  report  of  each  day's  march  of  the  return  given  to 
the  world  by  the  press  correspondents.  The  inglori- 
ous little  "  war  "  attracted  a  national  attention,  and  was 
for  months  the  one  theme  of  discussion  in  the  State 
of  Wyoming,  where  it  figured  for  a  long  time  in  State 
politics,  the  two  factions  continuing  their  fight  after 
they  had  been  obliged  to  lay  down  their  arms.  By  one 
party  it  was  urged  that  these  men  should  be  taken  back 
to  Buffalo  to  be  tried  there,  at  the  scene  of  their  of- 
fence; but  all  knew  what  that  meant,  and  the  wealth 
of  the  cattle  men  was  brought  into  the  legal  fight 
which  contested  any  such  dangerous  contingency. 
The  men  were  finally  taken  by  the  civil  authorities  to 
Laramie,  and  there  succeeded  in  obtaining  what  they 
coveted,  a  change  of  venue  to  Cheyenne,  where  they 
were  among  their  friends  and  on  their  own  ground. 
The  methods  of  modern  law,  which  they  had  but  a  few 
months  ago  violated  and  held  in  contempt  as  un- 
suited  to  themselves,  they  now  hailed  fervently  as  the 
one  thing  to  which  all  men  should  submit,  and  gladly 
enough  availed  themselves  of  it  as  their  only  means 
of  salvation.  So  far  from  desiring  to  be  set  free,  they 
clung  with  ludicrous  eagerness  to  their  prison,  and 
actually  paid  their  own  expenses  to  be  allowed  to  re- 
main in  jail!  This  they  did  for  three  months,  know- 
ing that  it  would  bankrupt  any  of  those  scantily  popu- 
lated counties  to  keep  so  large  a  party  of  prisoners, 
and  they  being  desirous  of  anything  rather  than  the 
boon  of  liberty  just  then,  since  liberty  meant  danger 
and  imprisonment  offered  them  safety!  Their  plans 
were  successful,  and  that  law  which  they  had  scorned, 
and  under  which  they  now  cowered,  took  care  of  them 
better  than  they  perhaps  deserved. 


322  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

It  was  now  the  time  not  of  the  old  West,,  but  the 
new  West.  All  the  wealth  and  influence  of  the  most 
heavity  populated  portions  of  Wyoming  were  with  the 
cattle  men,  and  it  was  foregone  that  they  would  not 
he  convicted.  When  finally  heard  in  court,  these  men 
were  all  set  free  upon  their  own  personal  recognisance, 
each  man  charged  with  the  murder  of  two  men,  Cham- 
pion and  Kay,  and  each  offence  made  bailable  in  a 
very  large  sum  of  money,  the  total  of  bail  for  the  forty 
men  or  so  tried  amounting  into  the  millions.  This 
the  cattle  men  were  able  to  produce  or  to  pay  if  neces- 
sary, but  of  course  the  Texas  fighting  men  were  not. 
The  latter,  acting  under  advice  of  counsel,  left  the 
country,  "  jumping  "  their  bonds.  During  the  trial 
of  the  cause  the  cattle  men  were  practically  given 
their  liberty,  being  asked  to  attend  at  court  at  certain 
hours  of  the  day.  A  list  of  over  one  thousand  possi- 
ble jurymen  was  called,  and  at  a  time  when  not  even 
half  of  the  peremptory  challenges  of  the  accused  had 
been  exhausted,  it  became  apparent  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  get  a  jury.  It  was  actually  seen  that 
the  affair  was  too  big  for  the  courts  of  the  State  to 
handle.  The  prosecution  for  the  State  nolle  prowd 
the  cases.  These  men  were  therefore  never  tried, 
never  acquitted,  and  yet  can  not  be  again  arrested 
on  the  old  charges.  There  are  few  of  these  cattle 
men  who  care  to  speak  much  about  this  matter  nowa- 
days, and  probably  most  of  them  still  remain  enthusi- 
astic supporters 'of  the  law  of  the  land  to-day;  or  at 
least  they  should  if  they  possess  the  trait  of  <iratihide. 
Indeed,  the  law  has  gradually  taken  sway  in  Uustler- 
dom  as  the  country  has  grown  older,  and  now  the 
battles  are  referred  to  the  courts  by  both  parties  to 
much  greater  extent.  Some  of  the  rustlers  have  become 
bold  enough  to  openly  forswear  the  old  ways.  Some 


WARS  OF  THE  RANGE.  323 

have  turned  State's  evidence.  Yet  others  are  now  em- 
ployed by  the  cattle  men.,  and  make  the  best  cowpunch- 
ers  possible  to  be  found.  In  the  odd  conditions  of  the 
range  it  has  already  been  agreed  between  these  late 
armed  foes  that  bygones  are  to  be  bygones. 

Thus  ended  the  last  of  the  great  wars  of  the  range, 
and  the  only  one  that  has  ever  been  a  ludicrous  one. 
It  might  not  have  been  so  much  smiled  at  had  it  suc- 
ceeded, but  success  on  either  side  might  have  been  a 
very  unfortunate  thing.  The  attempt  failed  partly 
because  the  men  who  made  it  were  not  suited  for  such 
work.  Not  plainsmen  themselves,  they  undertook  the 
methods  of  plainsmen.  They  might  far  better  have 
clung  to  the  ways  under  which  they  had  been  born 
and  brought  up,  and  to  which  they  so  gladly  returned 
when  they  found  they  could  not  negotiate  the  ways 
of  the  old  West.  Indeed,  their  fundamental  mistake 
was  one  of  chronology.  Suddenly  it  had  grown  too 
late  for  the  old  ways.  The  old  West  was  gone. 

The  story  of  this  last  attempt  at  the  revival  of  the 
past  fashions  of  the  West  does  not  make  to-day  the 
pleasantest  of  reading,  but  it  serves  after  all  to  show 
something  further  of  the  character  of  the  cowboy. 
Misguided  and  impulsive  perhaps,  he  was  always  eager 
to  be  where  the  fighting  was  thickest,  and  there  he 
conducted  himself  as  a  man  according  to  the  creed  un- 
der which  he  had  been  reared.  Creeds  change  about 
us;  creeds  of  morals,  of  religion,  of  ethics,  as  the  his- 
tory of  the  past  shows  must  continually  be  the  case, 
everything  being  always  relative  to  some  other  thing. 
It  may  have  been  a  creed  outworn  which  served  the 
cowboy  upon  the  one  side  or  the  other  of  this  ignomini- 
ous little  war.  Yet  it  is  a  singular  fact  that,  ignoble 
as  the  part  of  a  hired  fiirhter  has  always  been  held  to 
be,  no  one  has  ever  smiled  at  the  part  played  by  the 


324:  THE  STORY   OF  THE  COWBOY. 

cowpuncher  supernumerary  in  this  little  drama  of  the 
range.  The  centre  of  the  stage  was  occupied  by  fig- 
ures larger  financially  than  himself,  but  he  alone  out 
of  all  those  engaged  played  through  to  the  end  the  part 
for  which  he  had  been  cast. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

BEEF    AND    FKEEDOM. 

THERE  is  very  great  temptation  in  writing  of  the 
American  cowboy  to  tell  only  the  thrilling  stories  of 
his  life,  to  paint  only  the  vivid  pictures,  the  material 
for  such  treatment  being  so  abundant  and  the  demand 
for  it  so  pronounced.  Yet,  perhaps,  we  can  afford  to 
be  more  just  to  the  man  and  the  country  he  repre- 
sented, can  afford  to  read  at  least  a  short  lesson  which 
would  show  the  cowboy  not  as  a  freak,  but  as  a  factor. 
A  factor  he  certainly  was  in  the  development  of  the 
West.  He  was  precisely  the  right  man  in  the  right 
place.  Therefore  he  was  a  factor  in  the  building  of 
America,  and  as  such  he  deserves  a  just  and  definite 
place  in  the  history  of  the  country — a  place  where  he 
can  be  viewed  not  so  much  with  amusement  as  with 
pride,  where  he  can  be  recognised  for  what  he  was, 
one  of  the  great  essential  citizens  of  the  land.  The 
cowboy  did  not  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where 
one  had  grown  before,  but  he  caused  double  the  num- 
ber of  cattle  to  graze  upon  the  unutilized  grass  which 
made  one  of  the  resources  of  the  land.  He  was  not 
only  a  product  of  the  country,  but  a  producer  for  the 
country,  and  he  distinctly  added  to  the  total  of  the 
crude  natural  wealth  quite  as  much  as  the  farmer  who 
digs  such  wealth  up  out  of  the  soil.  He  brought  into 
the  reach  of  the  citizen  of  America  his  share  of  those 

325 


326  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

incomparable  resources  which  have  made  that  citizen 
the  most  fortunate  man  of  the  earth.  He  played  his 
part  in  that  national  development  which  made  the 
American  citizen  not  only  the  luckiest  citizen  of  the 
earth,  but  also  the  best  citizen,  the  citizen  best  fitted 
to  uphold  a  nation's  honour  and  prosperity. 

It  is  no  mere  catch  phrase  to  say  that  beef  and 
freedom  go  together.  Compare  the  beef-eating  Eng- 
lish with  the  rice-eating  natives  of  India,  or  the  fruit- 
eaters  of  Africa,  whom  they  overwhelm  so  easily.  It 
is  a  matter  of  nationality  in  the  first  place,  to  be  sure, 
but  of  nationality  plus  long  generations  of  better  food. 
To  go  further,  both  logic  and  history  warrant  the  con- 
clusion that  there  is  not  upon  the  face  of  the  globe 
to-day  a  better  fighting  man  than  he  who  by  birth  and 
residence  is  entitled  to  be  called  a  citizen  of  America, 
because  he  has  been  the  best-fed  man  on  earth.  The 
cowboy  has  helped  feed  that  man.  He  has  added  to 
his  wealth.  For  this  he  deserves  an  industrial  credit 
as  much  as  does  the  farmer  who  also  produces  wealth, 
the  sailor  who  carries  it,  the  soldier  who  defends  it. 
It  was  the  part  of  the  cowboy  to  aid  in  the  production 
of  food  of  the  most  desired  and  valued  sort,  a  food 
which  but  small  portions  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
world  have  ever  been  able  to  afford.  America  has 
sold  beef  to  the  world,  but  she  sold  of  her  surplus  and 
did  not  stint  herself  to  sell.  She  gave  to  Europe  what 
was  left  over  from  her  own  table.  Happy  has  been  the 
American — perhaps  how  happy  he  does  not  stop  to 
think,  and  perhaps  why  happy  he  does  not  pause  to 
ask.  Much  of  the  measure  of  his  good  fortune  lay  in 
the  vast,  the  apparently  inexhaustible  treasures  of  the 
West.  The  measure  of  his  ignorance  of  that  good 
fortune  may  be  seen  later  on  in  the  history  of  the  na- 
tion; seen  too  soon,  perhaps,  when  the  mines  of  this 


BEEF  AND  FREEDOM.  327 

wealth  shall  have  been  laid  open  and  laid  bare,  when 
the  American,  rich  and  unreckoning,  shall  have  shared 
with  all  the  world,  and  that  to  his  own  disadvantage, 
the  wealth  that  was  his  native  heritage. 

The  beef  of  the  cattle  range  makes  up  but  a  small 
percentage  of  the  total  of  the  beef  which  now  conies 
into  the  great  cattle  markets  of  the  United  States,  for 
the  "  granger  "  has  won  his  fight,  and  from  this  time 
on  the  farms  and  the  herds  will  be  smaller  and  small- 
er. But  it  is  not  in  the  least  fanciful  to  take  into  esti- 
mate the  relations  of  American  free  beef  and  American 
free  institutions  as  well  as  the  American  free  and  fear- 
less character.  The  beef  herders  and  the  beef  eaters 
of  history  have  been  winning  peoples  as  far  back  as 
we  can  find  in  history,  and  it  is  not  asking  too  much 
of  history  to  expect  that  she  shall  repeat  herself.  It 
is  not  impossible  to  predict  the  quality  or  the  names 
of  those  nations  which  from  now  on  will  divide  the 
world  among  them.  These  will  not  be  the  vegetarian 
nations.  The  latter  will  be  eaten  up,  as  the  lion  eats 
up  the  deer. 

Almost  an  overwhelming  proportion  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  globe,  even  of  the  population  of  Europe, 
is  vegetarian,  not  by  choice  but  from  necessity.  The 
American  citizen  who  goes  to  Germany  for  a  year's 
residence  learns  that  in  that  country  many  things  are 
held  as  luxuries  which  in  America  are  necessaries,  ex- 
pected as  matter  of  course  by  every  American  citizen, 
no  matter  how  poor  he  be.  How  often  can  the  Ger- 
man peasant  afford  even  the  most  miserable  bit  of  in- 
ferior meat  for  his  table?  It  is  a  feast  for  the  family 
of  such  a  man  if  they  chance  to  have  that  which 
the  American  labourer  eats  as  his  daily  and  expected 
portion.  America  throws  away  out  of  her  back  door 
more  than  would  make  the  German  peasantry  de- 


328  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

liriously  happy.  Moreover,  America  can  afford  to 
doit. 

The  great  bulk  of  the  English  lower  classes,  though 
the  English  are  the  greatest  meat-eating  nation  of 
Europe,  rarely  see  a  bit  of  beef  upon  their  tables.  The 
labourer  of  that  country  may  make  ten  to  twenty  shil- 
lings a  week,  out  of  which  he  is  to  support  himself  and 
family,  if  he  be  conscienceless  enough  to  marry  and 
raise  a  family,  as  usually  he  is.  Both  beef  and  free- 
dom are  far  beyond  such  a  man,  dreams  in  which  he 
has  no  part.  Compare  the  chain  forgers  and  other 
metal  workers  of  England — men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, whole  families  fettered  to  the  bellows  and  anvil 
year  in  and  year  out,  hopeless,  continually  hungry 
for  even  one  satisfying  meal  of  but  the  coarsest  bread, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  particle  of  meat — compare  such 
beings  with  the  free  cowboy  of  America.  Which 
should  be  the  better  citizen?  Whose  the  better  blood 
to  have  in  a  nation's  veins?  Take  the  slaves  of  Eng- 
land's collieries,  whose  terrible  and  hopeless  lives  are 
passed  truly  beneath  the  heel  of  their  civilization,  and 
apparently  beneath  the  consideration  alike  of  hope 
and  of  humanity;  compare  such  men  with  the  wild 
rider  of  the  range,  who  lives  under  the  big  blue  sky, 
who  fears  no  thing  that  breathes,  who  has  health  and 
energy  fairly  to  throw  away  in  mere  surplus  of  vitality. 
Which  is  the  better  sort  of  citizen  to  have  behind  a 
nation  in  the  shock  of  arms  or  in  the  shock  of  years? 
Well  may  the  slaves  of  the  older  civilization  long  for 
the  beef  and  the  freedom  of  the  West.  And  if  that 
West  be  gone,  well  may  we  sigh  for  it  ourselvos! 

The  Hindu  eats  rice  and  grain,  and  he  sits  dream- 
ing by  the  rivers  which  have  mirrored  his  same  apa- 
thetic face  for  ages.  The  Russian  lives  upon  wheat 
and  corn,  when  he  is  lucky  enough  to  have  it  from 


BEEF  AND  FREEDOM.  329 

his  own  soil  or  as  the  gift  from  rich  America  to  the 
starving;  and  behold  the  children's  children  of  the 
Kussian  in  sheepskins,  and  unable,  as  their  fathers 
were,  to  do  more  than  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  and 
the  gesture  of  submission.  The  Chinese  live  upon 
rice  and  what  else  they  may  find;  and  what  are  they 
among  the  nations?  What  do  such  peoples  know 
either  of  beef  or  of  freedom.  We  may  be  too  proud  to 
ask  a  comparison  between  such  men  and  the  inhabit- 
ants of  this  rich  and  favoured  land  of  ours.  No  land 
of  the  earth  has  ever  been  more  fully  or  more  variously 
favoured  than  this;  and  never  has  any,  in  all  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  shown  the  sudden  expansion  and  the 
permanent  growth  into  all  the  richness  of  things  valu- 
able in  national  prosperity.  It  has  been  a  wonderful 
country,  this  rich,  free  land.  It  has  won  its  wars, 
and  outlived  its  wounds,  and  builded  well  its  cities 
and  great  works,  and  bred  a  race  that  will  live  through 
the  centuries.  France  remembers  to-day  the  benefi- 
cence of  that  monarch  the  sign  of  whose  wiseness  was 
a  public  prosperity  which  enabled  every  citizen  to 
"  have  his  chicken  in  the  pot."  America  has  put  upon 
every  poor  man's  table  as  much  as  that  and  more,  and 
for  that  it'  thanks  no  sovereign  at  all.  Its  treasure- 
house  for  such  store  was  largely  in  the  West — that 
glorious,  abounding,  open,  manly  West,  where  there 
never  was  a  throne  except  the  saddle — the  land  par 
excellence  of  beef  and  freedom. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    IKON   TRAILS. 

THE  settlement  of  the  West  went  forward  by  leaps 
and  bounds,  along  projecting  tongues  of  civilization, 
which  extended  far  in  front  of  the  main  body  of  the 
population.  The  demon  of  unrest  drove  the  American 
frontiersman  to  move  a  dozen  times  in  a  generation. 
The  settlers  who  pressed  over  the  new  land  rolled  on 
and  over  in  long  waves,  like  a  flock  of  feeding  wild 
pigeons,  those  in  the  rear  rising  and  alighting  ahead  of 
those  who  had  preceded  them;  and,  moreover,  they 
did  this  along  lines  determined  by  the  same  reasons 
which  governed  the  wild  pigeons.  They  went  in  the 
line  of  the  least  resistance;  that  is  to  say,  where  they 
could  find  their  food  most  easily.  There  is  no  push 
so  irresistible  as  that  of  advancing  civilization.  The 
frontiersman  dreaded  a  neighbour,  and  would  be  mov- 
ing yet  if  there  were  any  place  to  which  he  could 
move.  In  his  journey  to  the  West  he  followed  the 
farming  lands,  the  hunting  regions,  the  rain  belt,  and 
the  places  where  the  Indians  were  least  prohibitory  in 
their  numbers.  Thus  his  progress  was  a  series  of 
broken  leaps,  of  concentrations  and  expansions,  always 
forward,  and  for  the  most  part  along  the  line  of  lati- 
tude upon  which  he  had  been  born.  Of  later  years 
the  tide  of  interstate  immigration  has  begun  to  move 
from  the  North  to  the  South,  but  this  has  occurred 

330 


THE  IRON  TRAILS.  331 

only  since  the  Western  lands  suitable  for  cultivation 
have  been  taken  up,  and  in  search  of  the  cheap  South- 
ern lands  which  still  remain  unoccupied. 

There  came  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  West  when 
the  projecting  arms  of  civilization  which  'extended  into 
the  West  were  crossed  at  right  angles  by  the  scanty 
population  which  came  up  from  the  southward  with 
the  cattle  trade  as  it  spread  swiftly  over  the  northern 
range.  Thus  the  open  lands  of  the  Northwest  and 
middle  West  were  assailed  from  two  directions  at  once. 
It  was  a  singular  population  which  took  possession  of 
that  wild  country,  and  one  whose  like  we  shall  hardly 
see  again  at  any  corner  of  the  world.  Hunter  and 
trapper,  skin  hunter,  gambler,  horse  thief,  capitalist, 
cowman,  farmer,  merchant,  artisan,  money  lender,  pro- 
fessional man,  desperado  and  tenderfoot — all  mingled 
in  an  eddy  and  boil  of  tumultuous,  vigorous  life.  Into 
this  new  population  there  came  pushing  up  steadily 
from  the  South  the  cattle  of  the  trail  and  the  men  who 
cared  for  them.  Thus  there  came  yet  other  new  in- 
habitants, with  new  customs  and  a  new  industry.  That 
was  the  time  when  the  two  trails  met,  the  long  trail 
of  the  drive  and  the  iron  trails  which  crossed  it  on 
their  way  to  the  Western  ocean. 

It  was  not  foreseen  what  tremendous  changes  these 
iron  trails  would  make  in  the  features  of  the  popula- 
tion and  the  pursuits  of  the  West,  nor  how  unspeaka- 
bly rapid  would  be  these  changes  in  their  coming,  yet 
the  changes  came  so  swiftly  as  to  forestall  prophecy. 
Each  railroad  acted  as  an  irrigating  ditch  to  carry  the 
stream  of  population  out  over  the  unsettled  lands. 
Each  little  town  was  the  gateway  for  a  series  of  smaller 
ditches  through  which  the  flood  trickled  out  and 
around.  Far  out  into  the  rainless  region  the  wave  of 
people  rolled  and  lessened  and  trickled,  until  fairly 


332  THE  STOEY   OF  THE  COWBOY. 

shallowed  up  by  the  ultimate  earth,  a  soil  which  re- 
fused to  yield  them  a  living. 

The  railroads  crossed  the  continent  once,  twice, 
thrice,  and  yet  again.  They  began  to-  build  spurs  and 
side  lines,  reaching  out  into  all  places  where  there 
were  merchantable  things  to  be  carried  in  or  out  of 
the  country.  It  was  not  long  until  the  railroads  saw 
what  a  carrying  trade  there  was  in  the  cattle  industry 
of  the  West.  These  many  thousands  of  great  crea- 
tures, the  range  cattle  which  came  North  at  the  ex- 
pense of  a  season's  time  and  a  sad  per  cent  of  loss, 
could  be  handled  in  a  much  quicker  and  safer  way. 
The  railroads  could  do  in  a  few  days  what  the  trail 
outfit  needed  months  to  do,  and  could  deliver  the  cat- 
tle with  less  loss  and  in  better  condition.  The  rail- 
roads no  longer  followed  the  law  of  latitude.  They 
took  the  suggestion  of  longitude.  The  iron  trails  bent 
down  and  ran  North  and  South  along  the  old  foot- 
worn trails  of  the  great  cattle  drives.  In  the  year  of 
1896  there  was  but  one  trail  outfit  driving  cattle  North 
from  Texas.  Before  the  days  of  the  railroads  there 
had  been  hundreds. 

Over  the  iron  trails  there  went  out  ploughs  and  mow- 
ing machines  and  harrows  and  other  things  strange 
and  unheard  of  upon  the  old  cow  range.  The  grain 
lands  pressed  into  the  grass  lands,  and  to  these  grow- 
ing grain  lands,  as  well  as  to  the  remaining  range  re- 
gion, the  railroads  began  to  carry  the  horned  cattle 
from  the  South,  from  the  East,  from  every  direction. 
They  carried  cattle  from  the  North  to  the  South, 
changing  the  whole  breed  of  the  latter  country.  They 
carried  cattle  from  the  South  to  the  North,  chang- 
ing another  breed  in  turn.  Moreover,  they  car- 
ried out  wire  for  fences,  and  so  they  sewed  the  shroud 
of  the  old  cattle  range. 


THE  IRON  TRAILS.  333 

Into  even  the  farthest  corners  of  the  cow  range 
the  railroads  crept.  Towns  sprang  up  over  the 
plains;  towns  where  there  were  steeples,  and  where 
houses  had  paint  upon  them,  something  hitherto  un- 
heard of  in  that  country.  The  cow  town  dwindled 
away  or  became  disgustingly  decorous,  its  place  be- 
ing taken  by  the  smart  and  pretentious  little  city  of 
the  new  West.  A  horde  of  lawyers,  doctors,  mer- 
chants, thieves,  and  other  necessaries  swept  into  each 
town  as  quickly  as  it  was  organized.  Life  on  the  wan- 
ing frontier  became  more  colourless  and  less  pic- 
turesque. Again  new  customs  came  in.  Hospitality 
became  less  generous  and  suspicion  more  general. 
There  were  locks  on  the  doors. 

The  wire  fences  and  the  fields  of  the  farming  man 
came  into  evidence  wherever  stony-hearted  Nature 
would  allow  the  latter  to  hold  his  own  for  a  season  or 
so  out  of  every  half  a  dozen;  for  the  Western  farmer 
above  all  things  was  hopeful  and  enduring.  The 
farming  communities,  or  "  granger  settlements,"  as 
the  cowmen  called  them,  fed  little  towns  of  their  own, 
such  towns  taking  also  for  a  time  the  trade  of  the  stock- 
men. Then  the  cattle  trade  began  under  the  influence 
of  the  railroads  to  settle  and  centralize  into  big  per- 
manent cities  of  much  more  import  and  permanence 
than  the  old  cow  towns  of  the  frontier.  One  heard  of 
Sherman,  Denison,  Henrietta,  Fort  Worth,  in  the 
South;  of  Miles  City,  Laramie,  Cheyenne,  in  the 
North. 

And  then  there  came  another  time  in  the  history 
of  the  West.  The  iron  trails  had  brought  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  to  this  Western  country,  prom- 
ising them  all  sorts  of  things  in  addition  to  those 
things  which  they  in  their  ignorance  promised  them- 
selves. Some  of  these  found  the  West  not  so  hospita- 


334  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

Lie  as  they  had  thought.  The  "  rain  belt "  proved  a 
most  unsatisfactory  thing  to  count  upon,  though  it 
looked  well  enough  in  Western  railroad  literature  to 
say  that  it  had  steadily  moved  westward  and  was  now 
shedding  regular  and  beneficent  showers  alike  upon 
the  just  and  the  unjust  over  such  and  such  lands  in  the 
arid  portions  of  the  West.  The  farmers  found  that 
corn  would  not  ripen  on  the  high  bleak  table-lands, 
that  wheat  would  not  do  well  once  in  a  half  dozen 
plantings.  The  nights  were  too  cold  for  some  crops, 
and  the  days  too  warm  for  others.  The  "  rain  belt " 
yielded  no  rain.  It  needed  the  deepest  of  wells  to 
reach  unfailing  water.  There  was  no  fuel  within  hun- 
dreds of  miles.  There  ensued  some  seasons  of  want 
over  great  stretches  of  the  newly  settled  country,  and 
some  winters  in  which  hundreds  of  the  "  grangers  " 
actually  froze  to  death  in  the  severe  storms  which 
found  them  unprepared.  Back  from  large  areas  of 
Dakota,  Nebraska,  and  Kansas  the  discouraged  settlers 
began  to  sweep,  and  the  antelope,  resumed  the  feeding 
grounds  from  which  they  had  been  temporarily  driven.* 
The  cowboy  followed  the  antelope  back  again  over 
some  of  this  natural  range.  Then  in  time  came  the 
resultant  of  all  these  many  forces,  the  "  sag  "  in  the 

*  A  newspaper  paragraph  printed  in  May,  1897,  has  the  fol- 
lowing information,  apropos  to  the  above :  "  The  towns  of 
Woodsdale,  Moscow,  Springfield,  and  Fargo,  in  Kansas,  which 
had  a  population  of  1,100  in  1890,  have  now  only  a  population  of 
eighteen,  according  to  a  correspondent  of  the  United  States  In- 
vestor. Hugoton  has  three  families  out  of  the  400  that  used  to 
live  there.  Nine  children  go  to  the  $10.000  schoolhouso,  and 
there  is  standing,  like  a  monument  of  folly,  a  water-works  sys- 
tem that  cost  some  Eastern  plutocrat  $30,000.  The  town  novor 
paid  a  cent  of  principal  or  interest  on  all  this  and  never  will." — 
E.  H. 


THE  IRON  TRAILS.  335 

cattle  business,  and  the  final  readjustment  under  the 
exacter  system  of  later  days. 

The  edge  was  worn  off  the  frontier  by  the  grind  of 
the  wheels  of  civilization.  It  became  fashionable  to 
speak  of  law  and  order,  of  city  improvements,  of  East- 
ern capital,  of  future  growth  of  the  city,  and  all  that. 
Politics  began  to  be  considered,  and  all  the  ways  of 
older  society  came  into  effect.  The  men  of  the  wilder 
and  freer  West  who  made  a  good  part  of  the  new  popu- 
lation were  not  the  ones  to  oppose  all  this.  As  they 
had  made  it  possible,  so  now  they  aided  in  making  it 
permanent.  The  old  citizen  of  the  West  became  the 
new  citizen.  Changing  with  his  fellows,  the  cowboy 
now  became  a  steady,  quiet,  faithful,  and  hard-working 
man,  following  his  trade  as  he  had  learned  it  in  the 
past,  though  now  under  conditions  very  different. 

The  centre  of  the  cattle  industry  had  now  shifted 
entirely  from  the  South  to  the  North,  Wyoming  and 
Montana  furnishing  the  bulk  of  the  range  beef  instead 
of  Texas.  Always  the  cattle  in  the  long  train  loads 
going  to  the  markets  had  shorter  and  shorter  horns. 
Always  the  hatband  of  the  Northern  cowboy  became 
narrower  and  narrower.  Far  down  in  the  Spanish 
Southwest,  in  the  remote  and  desert  country  where 
even  the  boldest  granger  dared  not  venture,  the  ways 
of  the  past  were  slowest  to  yield  to  change,  and  the 
cowpuncher  retained  more  fully  something  of  his  old- 
time  picturesqueness;  for  there  the  iron  trails  met  iron 
customs  and  the  stony  apathy  of  centuries  of  calm. 

If  the  cowpuncher  lost  something  of  his  old-time 
picturesqueness  as  a  Western  type,  the  change  did  not 
rob  him  entirely  of  his  innate  traits  and  characteristic 
habits,  nor  did  it  change  materially  the  routine  of  his 
duties.  The  old  ways  of  the  range,  the  ways  invented 
by  the  unknown  old  Spaniard  centuries  ago,  remained 


336  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

somewhat  or  much  the  same.  The  mark  and  the 
brand  were  still  the  title  of  ownership,  and  the  round- 
up still  the  recognised  means  of  establishing  the  cow- 
man's wish  for  justice.  The  day's  routine,  the  work 
of  the  drive,  the  round-up,  the  corral,  remained  much 
the  same.  Then,  as  ever,  the  life  of  the  cowboy  was 
one  taking  him  far  from  the  settlements  and  into  such 
narrow  solitudes  as  remained.  He  still  needed  his 
traits  of  courage,  skill,  and  independence  of  action. 
He  was  still  a  cowboy.  All  the  nation  knew  him  now. 
His  vogue  was  greatest  at  the  beginning  of  the  end  of 
his  short  day.  Changed  though  he  was  in  minor  ex- 
tent, he  had  now  blended  with  the  life  of  his  country. 
He  had  become  a  citizen.  He  was  a  part  of  the  warp 
of  an  interwoven  web  of  humanity,  though  still  he 
made  a  dash  of  colour  upon  the  growing  monotone. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

SUNSET   ON   THE    RANGE. 

THE  great  law  which  rules  all  animate  life  compels 
all  creatures  to  wage  continual  war  with  their  sur- 
roundings, yet  teaches  them  that  they  may  best  win  in 
that  war  by  compromise  with  the  surroundings.  Each 
creature  partakes  of  the  soil  that  bore  it.  We  are  all 
not  ourselves,  but  the  reflection  of  that  which  was 
about  us. 

The  great  West,  vast  and  rude,  brought  forth  men 
also  vast  and  rude.  We  pass  to-day  over  parts  of  that 
matchless  region,  and  we  see  the  red  hills  and  ragged 
mountain  fronts  cut  and  crushed  into  huge  indefinite 
shapes,  to  which  even  a  small  imagination  may  give 
a  human  or  more  than  human  form.  In  the  "  frozen 
music  "  of  the  broken  buttes  there  may  lie  models  for 
some  future  architect. 

That  same  great  hand  which  chiseled  out  these 
monumental  forms  and  phases  laid  its  fingers  upon  the 
people  of  this  region.  Rude  and  ironlikc,  their  na- 
ture simulated  that  of  the  stern  faces  set  about  them. 
Into  their  hearts  came  the  elemental  disturbance  of 
the  storm,  the  strength  of  the  hills,  the  broadness  of 
the  prairies.  They  lay  in  the  cradle  of  solitude,  swung 
by  the  hand  of  calm.  Those  babes  of  the  West  were 
giants,  because  that  was  a  land  of  giants.  Among 
their  own  people,  who  stood  about  them  unseen  and 

337 


338  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

unknown,  they  grew  to  their  full  stature.  Never 
shall  that  stature  lessen!  Never  shall  they  pass  away! 
The  Indian,  the  hunter,  the  plainsman,  the  cowboy 
will  not  die.  They  will  but  pass  back  among  their 
people,  whence  they  came.  They  will  vanish  again 
upon  the  edge  of  the  plains.  They  will  look  down 
upon  us  from  the  hills  in  some  immortal  form! 

Of  all  these  babes  of  the  primeval  mother,  the  West, 
the  cowboy  was  perhaps  her  dearest,  because  he  was  her 
last.  Some  of  her  children  lived  for  a  century,  others 
for  half  that  time;  this  one  for  not  a  triple  decade 
before  he  began  to  be  old.  Knowing  for  him  that 
which  he  did  not  know,  the  West  foresaw  the  time 
when  he  too  would  ride  away  into  the  hills  and  never 
come  back  again;  yet  none  the  less  she  smiled  upon 
him,  with  the  slow  smile  of  elemental  mysteries — 
that  smile  which  rests  upon  stone  lips  by  the  banks 
of  the  Nile,  and  upon  the  lips  of  the  faces  in  the 
Rockies. 

What  was  really  the  life  of  this  child  of  the  wild 
region  of  America,  and  what  were  the  conditions  of  the 
life  that  bore  him  can  never  be  fully  known  by  those 
who  have  not  seen  the  West  with  wide  eyes.  Those 
who  did  not,  but  who  looked  superficially  and  supercil- 
iously, remembering  only  their  own  surroundings,  and 
forgetting  that  in  the  eye  of  Nature  one  creature  is  as 
good  as  another  if  only  it  prevail  where  it  stands,  were 
content  with  distorted  views  of  that  which  they  saw 
about  them.  Having  no  perspective  in  thoir  souls, 
how  could  they  find  it  in  their  eyes?  They  saw  colour 
but  not  form  in  these  wild  men  of  the  wild  country. 
They  saw  traits,  but  did  not  see  tho  diarm-for  beneath 
them.  Seeking  to  tell  of  that  which  they  INK!  not 
seen,  they  became  inaccurate  and  unjust.  Dallying 
with  the  pleasant  sensation  of  exciting  themes,  they 


SUNSET  ON  THE  RANGE.  339 

became  grotesque  instead  of  strong  in  their  handling 
of  them. 

The  cowboy  was  simply  a  part  of  the  West.  He 
who  did  not  understand  the  one  could  never  under- 
stand the  other.  Never  was  any  character  more  mis- 
understood than  he;  and  so  thorough  was  his  misrep- 
resentation that  part  of  the  public  even  to-day  will 
have  no  other  way  of  looking  at  him.  They  see  the 
wide  hat  and  not  the  honest  face  beneath  it.  They 
remember  the  wild  momentary  freaks  of  the  man,  but 
forget  his  lifetime  of  hard  work  and  patient  faith- 
fulness. They  insist  upon  the  distorted  mask,  and 
ask  not  for  the  soul  beneath  it.  If  we  care  truly  to 
see  the  cowboy  as  he  was,  and  seek  to  give  our  wish 
the  dignity  of  a  real  purpose,  the  first  intention  should 
be  to  study  the  cowboy  in  connection  with  his  sur- 
roundings. Then  perhaps  we  may  not  fail  of  our  pur- 
pose, but  come  near  to  seeing  him  as  he  actually  was, 
the  product  of  primitive,  chaotic,  elemental  forces, 
rough,  barbarous,  and  strong.  Then  we  shall  love 
him;  because  at  heart  each  of  us  is  a  barbarian  too, 
and  longing  for  that  past  the  ictus  of  whose  heredity 
we  can  never  eliminate  from  out  our  blood.  Then  we 
shall  feel  him  appeal  to  something  hid  deep  down  in 
our  common  nature.  And  this  is  the  way  in  which  we 
should  look  at  the  cowboy  of  the  passing  West;  not  as 
a  curiosity,  but  as  a  product;  not  as  an  eccentric 
driver  of  horned  cattle,  but  as  a  man  suited  to  his 
times. 

The  study  of  the  cattle  trade  is  essential  to  a 
study  of  the  cowboy,  and  hence  the  wish  to  speak 
broadly  of  the  varying  conditions  of  that  trade.  Fi- 
nally we  must  come  to  those  widespread  changes  of 
condition  which  have  changed  or  will  soon  havo 
changed  fundamentally  the  entire  industry.  We  have 


340  THE  STORY,  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

seen  the  forces  working  against  the  permanency  of 
the  great  industry  of  cattle  ranching.  The  small  land- 
holder, the  sheep  herder,  the  fence  builder  and  the 
irrigator  are  the  great  enemies  of  the  cattle  man.  Per- 
haps of  all  these  the  one  most  to  be  dreaded  is  the 
last  one.  The  man  who  brings  water  upon  the  arid 
lands  of  the  West  changes  the  entire  complexion  of 
a  vast  country,  and  with  it  the  industries  of  that  coun- 
try. This  irrigation  may  be  by  means  of  artesian  wells 
or  by  use  of  the  natural  streams.  Already  there  are 
thousands  of  acres  of  soil  as  rich  as  any  of  the  world 
which  are  now  redeemed  from  the  desert  and  changed 
into  fertile  farming  lands.  These  are  added  to  the 
realm  of  the  American  farmer.  They  are  stolen  from 
the  realm  of  the  American  cowboy.  The  valleys  of 
Montana  and  Wyoming,  when  placed  "  under  the 
ditch,"  produce  corn  as  good  as  any  of  Iowa  or  Illi- 
nois, wheat  as  good  as  that  of  Dakota,  oats  and  barley 
in  similar  abundance,  and  fruits  of  like  size  and  ex- 
cellence. Wherever  such  things  are  possible,  good-bye 
to  the  days  of  grass  feed  and  cattle  driving,  for  their 
time  is  past.  The  old  Spaniard  who  taught  us  the 
cattle  trade  also  taught  us  irrigation;  but  he  handed  us 
the  two  together,  little  thinking  that  the  one  would 
destroy  the  other. 

Not  all  the  open  range  will  ever  be  farmed,  but 
very  much  will  go  under  irrigation  which  is  now 
thought  to  be  irreclaimable.  The  givnl  ark'sinn  wells 
which  have  been  sunk  in  Dakota,  Colorado,  and  other 
parts  of  the  West  have  produced  results  so  strangely 
vast  in  their  significance  that  it  is  impossible  to  pre- 
dict where  they  may  finally  arrive.  Artesian  water 
was  first  used  to  open  up  thousands  of  acres  for  the 
cattle  man;  but  it  will  take  all  these  acres  away  agviin, 
and  many  more,  and  give  them  to  the  farmer  of  the 


SUNSET  ON  THE  RANGE.  341 

future.  The  constitution  of  the  chief  cattle  State  of 
the  Union  safeguards  the  title  of  the  running  water 
to  the  people  as  a  gift  of  Nature;  yet  eventually  the 
water  will  be  used  by  many  instead  of  a  few.  Each  of 
these  will  take  his  share  of  the  wild  farm  of  the  cow- 
boy. These  factors  remain  as  yet  unformulated,  but 
their  suggestion  is  very  strong  in  its  trend,  and  a  re- 
view of  them  can  lead  to  but  one  conclusion. 

Singularly  enough,  at  the  time  of  the  writing  of 
these  lines,  there  is  in  progress  at  a  city  in  western 
Nebraska  a  great  "  irrigation  fair/'  the  first  of  its  kind 
in  the  history  of  that  part  of  the  country.  This  fair 
exploits  the  possibilities  of  the  soil  when  under  irriga- 
tion. Thousands  of  people  have  come  together  there, 
among  these  many  Indians  and  cowboys  and  old- 
time  men  of  the  plains.  In  faint  imitation  of  the 
days  of  the  past,  the  town  is  run  "  wide  open."  It 
is  reported  that  the  scenes  of  '69  and  '70  are  re- 
peated. The  cowboys  are  riding  their  horses  into  the 
saloons  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  the  early  drives.  It 
is  sought  to  revive  the  spirit  of  that  old  West  which 
is  really  dead  beyond  the  reach  of  all  our  lamentations. 
Do  many  pause  to  consider  how  dramatic  a  scene  this 
really  is,  this  irrigation  fair  at  which  the  cowboy  is 
asked  to  attend  as  a  curiosity,  as  an  attraction?  Does 
he  himself  know  what  it  is  that  they  are  asking  him  to 
do?  They  ask  him  to  disport  himself  in  a  Titanic 
shadow-dance,  and  to  close  his  play  by  blowing  into 
its  final  flare  the  dwindling  flame  of  his  own  candle. 

The  West  has  changed.  The  old  days  are  gone. 
The  house  dog  sits  on  the  hill  where  yesterday  the 
coyote  sang.  The  fences  are  short  and  small,  and 
within  them  grow  green  things  instead  of  gray.  There 
are  many  smokes  now  rising  over  the  prairie,  and  they 
are  wide  and  black  instead  of  thin  and  blue. 
23 


34:2  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

As  we  look  out  in  the  evening  light  from  where  we 
stand,  we  may  see  the  long  shining  parallels  of  the 
iron  trail  reaching  out  into  the  sunset.  A  little  busy 
town  lies  near,  flanked  with  fields  of  grain  ready  for 
the  harvesting.  There  are  cattle;  not  those  of  "  de- 
formed aspect/7  which  Coronado  saw  when  he  walked 
across  this  country  in  the  gray  of  other  days,  but  sleek, 
round  beasts,  which  stand  deep  in  crops  their  ancestors 
never  saw.  In  the  little  town  is  the  hurry  and  bustle 
of  modern  life,  even  here,  upon  the  extreme  edge  of 
the  well-settled  lands.  For  this  is  in  the  West,  or 
what  is  now  known  as  the  West.  It  is  far  out  upon 
what  may  now,  as  well  as  any  place,  be  called  the 
frontier,  though  really  the  frontier  is  gone.  Guard- 
ing its  ghost,  watching  over  its  grave,  here  stands  a 
little  army  post,  once  one  of  the  pillars,  now  one  of 
the  monuments  of  the  West. 

The  routine  of  the  uncomplaining  men  who  make 
the  army  goes  on  here  still,  as  it  does  all  over  the 
land.  One  has  seen  the  forming  of  the  troops  to-day, 
over  there,  upon  the  parade  ground.  As  evening 
comes  he  can  hear  the  song  of  the  trumpets,  music 
to  tingle  in  his  hair.  As  the  sun  drops  to  the  edge 
of  the  plains  there  comes  the  boom  of  a  cannon  at  the 
fort,  and  fluttering  down  its  staff  falls  the  flag  which 
waves  over  East  and  West  and  South  and  North  alike, 
alike  over  the  present  and  the  past. 

Out  from  the  little  "  settlement "  in  the  dusk  of 
evening,  always  facing  toward  where  the  sun  is  sink- 
ing, rides  a  figure  we  should  know.  He  threads  the 
little  lane  among  the  fences,  following  the  guidance 
of  hands  other  than  his  own,  a  thing  he  would  once 
have  scorned  to  do.  He  rides  as  lightly  and  as  easily 
as  ever,  sitting  erect  and  jaunty  in  the  saddle,  his  reins 
held  high  and  loose  in  the  hand  whose  fingers  turn  up 


SUNSET  ON  THE  KANGE.  343 

daintily,  his  whole  hody  free  yet  firm  in  the  saddle 
with  the  seat  of  the  perfect  horseman.  His  hat  still 
sweeps  up  and  back  in  careless  freedom  of  fashion.  It 
is  dusk,  and  we  may  not  see  his  trappings.  Let  us 
hope  his  belt  is  still  about  his  waist,  his  spurs  still  jin- 
gling as  he  rides.  His  pony  is  the^ame  or  much  the 
same  as  when  we  saw  it  many  years  ago  coming  up 
the  street  of  a  very  different  town.  It  trots  steadily 
forward,  with  the  easy  movement  of  the  animal  accus- 
tomed to  long  distances.  The  two,  man  and  horse, 
show  up  strongly  in  the  unreal  light  of  evening  on 
the  plains.  They  seem  to  rise  and  move  strangely  as 
one  looks,  seem  to  grow  strangely  large  and  indistinct. 
Yet  they  melt  and  soften  and  so  define;  and  at  length, 
as  the  red  sun  sinks  quite  to  the  level  of  the  earth,  the 
figures  of  both  show  plainly  and  with  no  touch  of 
harshness  upon  the  Western  sky. 

The  cowboy  as  he  rides  on,  jaunty,  erect,  virile, 
strong,  with  his  eye  fixed  perhaps  on  the  ridge  miles 
away,  from  which  presently  there  may  shine  a  small 
red  light  to  hold  his  gaze,  now  looks  about  him  at  the 
buildings  of  the  little  town.  As  the  boom  of  the  can- 
non comes,  and  the  flag  drops  fluttering  down  to 
sleep,  he  rises  in  his  stirrups  and  waves  his  hat  to  the 
flag.  Then,  toward  the  edge,  out  into  the  evening, 
he  rides  on.  The  dust  of  his  riding  mingles  with  the 
dusk  of  night.  We  can  not  see  which  is  the  one  or 
the  other.  We  can  only  hear  the  hoof  beats  passing, 
boldly  and  steadily  still,  but  growing  fainter,  fainter, 
\  and  more  faint. 


ADDENDA. 


Page  40. 

IN  the  early  days  of  the  northern  range  the  rancher  had  a 
double  reason  for  the  dirt  roof  which  he  put  upon  his  house.  It 
was  not  only  the  warmest  and  most  easily  constructed  roof  pos- 
sible for  him  in  his  remote  part  of  the  world,  but  it  was  also  the 
safest.  In  the  frontier  times  the  outlying  ranch  houses  were 
often  attacked  by  Indians.  Even  yet  there  are  ranch  houses 
standing  on  the  range  whose  sides  are  pierced  by  the  loopholes 
which  were  once  so  necessary.  Against  the  dugout  of  the  cow- 
man the  Indian  was  well-nigh  powerless.  He  dared  not  ap- 
proach under  the  deadly  rifle  fire  of  the  defenders,  nor  could  he 
set  on  fire  the  roof  of  the  ranchman's  castle,  one  of  the  sturdiest 
and  most  effectual  fortresses  that  ever  formed  the  outposts  of  a 
civilization.  Sometimes  the  cowman  had  a  tunnel  dug  back 
from  his  dugout,  connecting  it  with  another  building  not  far 
away,  or  leading  farther  back  up  the  hill  to  a  better  fighting 
place.  Such  precautions  were  not  common,  but  they  instance  the 
skill  and  determination  of  these  men,  who  never  intended  to 
relinquish  their  grip  upon  the  land  they  had  discovered. 

As  time  wore  on  the  old-time  cowman  might  be  so  wedded 
to  the  dirt-covered  house  which  had  served  him  in  the  past  that 
he  would  never  seek  to  change  it.  The  cowman  who  remained  an 
"  old  batch  "  was  very  apt  to  find  his  dugout  or  his  cabin  good 
enough  for  him.  If,  however,  he  married  and  was  urged  to  take 
a  step  or  so  up  in  the  world,  he  might  build  him  a  better  ranch 
house,  perhaps  making  his  roof  on  the  home  ranch  building  of 
shingles  or  using  sawn  lumber  about  the  place  to  an  extent 
which  would  have  been  impossible  in  the  early  days.  The  new 


346  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

man  from  the  East,  who  had  not  grown  up  in  the  cattle  trade, 
and  who  had  been  accustomed  to  better  houses  in  his  youth  than 
had  the  old-timer,  would  be  very  apt  to  go  to  some  extent  of 
expense  and  trouble  to  put  himself  up  a  ranch  house  a  little 
more  ambitious  than  the  dugout  or  the  rude  cabin,  this  more 
especially  for  the  home  camp  where  he  intended  to  reside  when 
on  the  range.  The  line  camps  or  out-dwellings  for  the  men 
would  still  be  of  the  old  style — the  walls  perhaps  of  logs  or  sod, 
the  roof  being  perhaps  laid  with  rude  half  tiles  hollowed  out  of 
divided  saplings,  and  laid  so  that  they  "  broke  joints,"  the  edges 
of  two  convex  ones  fitting  in  the  hollow  of  one  concaved,  so  that 
the  water  would  thus  be  carried  off  as  it  is  on  a  tiled  roof  so  fitted. 
A  covering  of  dirt  usually  completed  this  rude  provision  for  the 
shedding  of  the  rain.  In  the  later  days  boards  were  used  in 
fitting  up  a  roof,  but  the  commonest  way  was  to  lay  a  rude  cov- 
ering of  small  logs  or  poles,  then  a  thin  thatching  of  willow 
boughs  and  grass,  covering  the  whole  with  a  layer  of  dirt.  Such 
a  roof  was  very  apt  to  leak,  but,  as  the  cowboy  had  not  very 
much  need  for  the  roof  at  best,  he  did  not  mind  so  trifling  a 
thing  as  that. 

Page  48. 

It  is  a  peculiarity  even  of  the  wildest  range  cattle  that  they 
must  have  water  at  frequent  intervals.  The  more  they  lose  their 
wild  quality,  the  more  often  they  need  water,  and  the  wilder  they 
are  the  safer  they  are  in  their  contest  with  the  elements.  The 
horses  will  paw  through  the  snow,  but  the  cattle  will  not.  The 
horses  will  stay  out  on  the  hills,  where  the  snow  is  thin,  feeding 
there  and  not  crowding  down  to  the  valleys  and  creek  beds  after 
water.  The  cattle  have  not  so  much  sagacity,  and  it  is  a  com- 
mon sight  to  see  the  valleys  of  the  water  ways  crowded  with  them 
during  the  winter  time  at  the  very  points  where  the  snow  lies 
deepest.  Here  they  will  huddle  up  and  silently  starve,  hanging 
about  the  watering  place  and  refusing  to  go  out  on  the  hills  to 
feed.  A  part  of  the  work  of  the  cowboys  at  such  a  time  is  to 
drive  these  animals  away  from  the  valleys  up  to  the  broken  coun- 
try back  from  the  streams,  where  they  can  find  a  little  feed. 
Sometimes  trails  are  broken  up  from  the  valleys  by  the  cowboys, 
who  ride  their  plunging  ponies  back  and  forth  and  finally  form 


ADDENDA.  347 

a  roadway  over  which  the  cattle  can  be  driven  out  from  the 
death  trap  into  which  they  have  come  and  which  they  refuse  to 
abandon.  It  has  even  been  the  case  in  more  recent  days  that  a 
rude  snowplough  has  been  made  and  used  to  open  a  trail  for  the 
cattle  back  from  such  a  deadly  valley  where  they  were  perishing. 
The  instinct  of  the  cattle  thus  appears  to  be  not  always  a  wise 
one.  Sometimes,  in  their  eagerness  to  get  at  the  coveted  water 
which  is  sealed  away  from  them  by  the  ice,  they  crowd  in  num- 
bers out  upon  the  ice  of  a  considerable  stream.  It  has  happened 
that  the  ice  in  such  an  event  has  broken,  many  scores  of  cattle 
thus  being  drowned. 

The  salvation  of  the  cattle  upon  a  wide  extent  of  the  north- 
ern range  lies  in  the  Chinook  wind,  that  strange,  warm  current 
of  air  which  sometimes  in  the  winter  season  comes  over  the  sum- 
mit of  the  upper  Rockies,  suffusing  far  out  to  the  east  of  the 
mountains  the  mild  breath  of  the  Japan  current  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  Its  effect  may  be  felt  perhaps  nearly  across  the  State  of 
Montana,  and  in  some  cases  as  far  south  as  Wyoming  or  parts  of 
Colorado.  When  the  ranchman  who  has  been  witnessing  his 
cattle  perishing  about  him  in  the  snow  sees  the  mountain  tops 
begin  to  look  black  and  ominous,  he  sighs  in  relief,  for  he  knows 
that  the  "  black  wind  "  of  the  Indians  is  coming.  Violently  this 
wind  blows,  and  suddenly  all  the  air  is  soft  and  mild.  The  snow 
does  not  melt,  but  simply  vanishes,  passing  away  as  though  by 
magic.  Then  the  cattle  may  drink  and  may  feed.  It  is  the 
armistice  offered  them  by  Nature.  Feebly  the  living  abandon 
the  dead  and  seek  to  gain  what  strength  they  may  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  battle  when  it  shall  again  close  in  upon  them. 

Page  214. 

If  it  be  during  the  springtime,  the  cowpuncher  may  meet 
yet  another  curious  feature  of  the  range  life  as  he  rides  on  his 
daily  round.  As  he  passes  over  a  patch  of  the  short  gray  sage- 
brush or  a  bit  of  grass  longer  than  the  average,  perhaps  even  a 
piece  of  ground  apparently  almost  bare,  his  trained  eye  may 
catch  a  glimpse  of  an  object  which  the  inexperienced  observer 
would  never  note  at  all.  Something  in  the  look  of  the  motion- 
less, shapeless  thing  lying  flat  on  the  ground  invites  a  second 
and  sharper  gaze.  The  cowpuncher  dismounts,  and  pulls  up  by 


348  THE  STORY  OF  THE  COWBOY. 

the  ear  a  little  young  calf,  which  has  been  lying  sprawled  out 
as  close  to  the  ground  as  it  could  lie,  making  not  the  slightest 
sound  or  movement  to  attract  the  attention  of  any  creature 
passing  by.  The  cattle  of  the  range  are  almost  as  wild  as  the 
elk  or  antelope  or  deer,  and  their  ways  are  very  similar  in  many 
respects.  The  mother  of  this  little  calf  has  perhaps  found  it 
necessary  to  go  five  or  ten  miles  to  water,  and  she  has  told  the 
calf  to  lie  down  and  keep  perfectly  still,  no  matter  what  may 
happen,  knowing  very  well  that  this  is  the  safest  way  for  it  to 
escape  the  eye  or  the  nose  of  the  wolf,  the  coyote,  or  any  other 
enemy  which  would  be  apt  to  assail  it  during  her  absence.  Thus 
does  the  mother  deer  or  antelope  "  cache  "  her  offspring  while 
away  feeding  or  at  water,  and  it  is  astonishing  how  effective  is 
this  ruse  of  the  mother  heart.  The  hunter  may  pass  within  a 
few  feet  of  the  little  antelope  and  never  see  it,  so  closely  does  it 
blend  in  colour  with  the  surrounding  tone  of  the  landscape.  The 
young  calf  may  be  betrayed  by  its  redder  coat,  but  it  will  be  as 
motionless  as  the  antelope  kid.  The  cowboy  picks  it  up  with 
his  rude  playfulness,  but  as  soon  as  he  lets  it  go  it  falls  flat  and 
motionless  again,  hugging  the  ground  as  tightly  as  it  can  and 
obeying  to  the  letter  the  injunction  of  instinct.  But  the  little 
calf  has  not  yet  learned  more  than  what  instinct  has  taught  it. 
Its  mother  has  been  gone  for  some  time,  and  in  its  confused 
young  mind  it  thinks  that  perhaps  this  other  big  creature  has 
come  to  take  charge  of  it  in  place  of  its  mother.  If  the  cowboy 
stays  about  the  calf  long,  picks  it  up  several  times,  or  pays  it 
much  attention,  the  little  thing  will  after  awhile  come  toddling 
along  after  him,  its  long  legs  wobbling  and  stumbling  as  it 
walks.  At  times  the  cowboy  finds  it  wise  to  earmark  this  calf 
where  it  is  found,  if  he  be  clear  in  his  own  conscience  that  it  be- 
longs to  his  outfit ;  but  even  after  the  cutting  with  the  knife  the 
little  calf  may  not  understand  that  it  should  not  follow  away 
this  big  creature,  and  will  come  after  the  cowboy  even  after  he 
has  mounted  and  started  to  ride  away.  Then  the  cowboy  gets 
down  again  from  his  horse  and  pushes  the  calf  down  on  the 
ground  again,  and  teaches  it  as  well  as  he  can  that  it  must  stay 
there  and  wait  for  its  mother.  He  knows  how  quickly  the  young 
of  wild  animals,  the  antelope,  the  deer,  or  even  the  buffalo,  will 
lose  the  instinctive  wildness  at  this  period  of  its  life,  and  follow 


ADDENDA.  349 

away  a  captor  without  any  compulsion.  The  writer  has  seen 
young  buffalo  calves,  which  were  left  loose  and  were  suckling 
domestic  cows  about  camp,  refuse  to  run  away  and  join  the  wild 
buffalo,  a  herd  of  which  were  standing  less  than  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  away.  Two  weeks  later  one  of  these  calves  would  follow 
the  wagon  without  being  tied,  and  showed  no  disposition  to  es- 
cape. A  hunter  who  takes  young  wild  animals  for  the  Zoolog- 
ical Gardens  at  Washington  says  that  a  fawn  which  is  found 
cached  by  its  dam  will  often  follow  its  captor  within  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  that  the  kids  of  the  antelope  need  but  very  little 
attention  to  make  them  entirely  docile  and  reconciled  to  cap- 
tivity. 

But  if  it  chances  that  the  cowpuncher  finds  his  calf  cached 
near  by  a  little  bunch  of  cattle,  or  perhaps  sees  several  calves 
surrounded  by  a  few  cows  or  a  number  of  other  range  cattle,  he 
does  not  get  off  his  horse  and  attempt  to  handle  the  calves.  He 
knows  that  should  he  do  so  he  would  be  charged  furiously  by 
the  band  of  cattle,  and  that  he  would  be  fortunate  if  he  escaped 
serious  injury.  If  he  is  thus  charged,  his  one  concern  is  to  get 
to  his  horse  as  fast  as  possible,  for  once  he  is  mounted  the  cattle 
will  leave  him  alone.  They  understand  him  then,  though  when 
he  is  on  foot  he  is  to  them  simply  a  wild  animal  and  a  probable 
enemy. 


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